


Points In Common

by kuonji



Series: Points In Common, side stories, misc. stories, AU story [1]
Category: C6D - Fandom, Wilby Wonderful (2004)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Drama, F/M, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-28
Updated: 2011-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-23 04:48:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuonji/pseuds/kuonji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buddy isn't the sort of person Duck pays attention to normally. He's just not part of Duck's crowd. Life, however, has a funny way of not turning out how you expect it to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Points In Common, Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative Links:  
> <http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/41545.html>

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Buddy isn't the sort of person Duck pays attention to normally._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative Links:  
> <http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/41239.html>

Buddy isn't the sort of person Duck pays attention to normally. Oh, he's good-looking and has a friendly reputation, and he asks smart questions in class. But he's just not part of Duck's crowd.

Not that Duck has a crowd, exactly. He's too short and scrawny to hang out with the kids who smoke under the bleachers. He's too dumb and restless to hang out with the geeks. He's too anti-social to hang out with the popular kids even if they would have him.

The majority of Duck's free time is spent with his best friend, Tom Milligan. Like Duck, Tommy's dad fishes on one of the commercial ships when there's work, and does odd jobs when there isn't. Unlike Duck, Tommy's mum has a clerk position in town -- and she's still alive.

"Buddy sure is a dreamboat isn't he?" Tommy says now. "Did you know, he's president of the Poetry Club, too."

Duck snorts and doesn't answer.

"I'd definitely do him." Tommy's not talking very loud, but they're sitting out on the field watching the lacrosse team practice, just like about a million other kids from Wilby High. There's probably nobody close enough to hear. Probably.

Like Duck, Tommy is gay. Unlike Duck, he probably wouldn't know how to be discreet to save his life.

Tommy's just a little taller than he is and has a lot of freckles and curly brown hair. He's about average in the looks department. Gracious grownups call him 'cute'. Duck's no 'dreamboat' himself, he knows. He's still shorter than a lot of girls his age, and his hair can't seem to decide whether it wants to be dirty ash or dishwater blond.

Duck's thought about messing around with Tommy a few times. Tommy's sure given him enough signs that he would be willing. Sometimes Duck lays in bed at night, pulling hard and fast at himself, and he feels that ache to be touched like he's going to _die_ , knowing that all he'd have to do is to invite Tommy over one day and...

But then Tommy would do something stupid like now, and Duck would remember that his best friend has a mouth about the size of the Northwest Territories. So he doesn't let on anything.

It isn't that Duck cares what people say about him. His dad raised him with hard but deep affection. A poor man for most of his life, and having only a grade school education, he'd refused to remarry after his Mina died and had chosen instead to share his home with a live-in 'nurse'. _"You live the way you live, son. If somebody don't like it -- fuck 'em."_

Duck doesn't remember his mother. She'd died when he was only a year old. Ms. Neil has always been kind to him, though. He'd gotten in a few scrapes with mouthy kids over the years, until everybody knew better than to call Ms. Neil names like 'slut' or 'harlot' while he's around.

For a scrawny guy, Duck knows how to fight.

"You should try out for the team," Tommy says. He runs a hand over Duck's bicep, causing him to take in a sharp breath. "You could play middie, I bet. You're so _flexible_."

Duck shakes him off, irritated at himself for his reaction. His dick's suddenly tingling. "I'm not going to run around a muddy field with a stupid net on a stick," he answers. And no way is he sharing a locker room with a dozen sweaty Buddy Frenches.

Tommy seems to be thinking about the same thing. "You think they'd make you blow 'em in the locker room?" he muses out loud, half-teasing. "All of them at once. Maybe Buddy would wanna fuck you."

Duck stands abruptly and stalks away. Damn Tommy.

"Hey, Duck! Duck, c'mon!" Tommy scrambles after him. "It was just a joke."

No, Duck doesn't care what people think or say about him. But he does care what people might do. He's not about to risk getting the shit kicked out of him -- not for a dumb joke. Plus, he doesn't know yet what he's going to do after high school. It might matter.

It's different for Tommy. He's been planning to leave Wilby for half his life. He's not going to be a fisherman. His parents want to send him to college.

"Duck! Hey, let's go get some ice cream at the Double Scoop, okay? My treat. I got my allowance today."

Duck doesn't want to fight, and ice cream sounds good. "Okay," he agrees.

***

Maybe it's what Tommy said. Maybe he's just that dumb. Anyway, he's been curious for ages, and something makes him go down to South Cape that evening.

Everyone knows South Cape. In the daytime, people fish and play in the tide pools and tourists take pictures of the view. At night, though, the rocky, bare caves and scraggly bushes dotted everywhere is make-out central for anyone who doesn't have parents who work late or a car with a back seat.

That's what the _east_ side is, at least.

The west side is where the queers hook up.

Everyone knows that, too.

Duck shows up a little before dark, so if anyone sees him, he can reasonably say that he's just here for the view. He leaves his bike against a tree and walks up the short trail to the beachhead. He's feeling a little nervous, and he's wondering again if he should have come alone. But bringing Tommy would have been a bigger mistake than inviting him home.

Rubbing sweaty palms on his jeans, Duck tells himself that he's just here to look around. He just wants to see how things... happen here. He's not going to do anything stupid. He's still arguing with himself about whether or not he should just head home when he breaks through the last stand of dry thistle on the west side of the cape.

His heart almost stops when he sees someone already there, sitting with his back to Duck, looking out over the water. He's certain his heart does skip a beat when he recognizes who it is.

Buddy French.

He starts to back away, but he must have made some noise because Buddy turns toward him. He doesn't look surprised or ashamed or anything -- shit, is he a _regular_ here? -- just kind of curious.

"Hi...?" he says, and it takes a moment for Duck to realize that Buddy is trying to remember who he is. Their school is small. Hell, their island is small. You generally wind up recognizing all the other kids by sight even if you don't know their names.

"I'm Duck," he says. He feels like an idiot standing there, so he walks toward the other boy.

"Hi, Duck. I'm Buddy."

"Yeah, I know." Trying to look casual, he sits down next to Buddy on the same rock. "Nice day," he says, and grits his teeth at the inane comment. He arranges his legs and tries not to fidget. He can't believe he's doing this.

Buddy doesn't answer for a moment. Then he says, softly, "It's beautiful, isn't it? This spot right here must have the best view on all of Wilby Island." He sweeps his arm out, like he's a magician showing off his final act.

That sounds a little like a come-on, but Buddy's not even looking at him. Frowning slightly in confusion, Duck looks out where Buddy is. It _is_ nice, he decides. They're on the lee shore of the island here, and the water crashes up against the rocks in a pounding, trance-like rhythm. The setting sun strikes the tide pools, making them glow. Farther out, Duck can see tiny islands of rock forming natural sculptures in the water. The faintest smudge on the western horizon is New Brunswick, but straight ahead is the endless ocean that Duck's grown up with -- fear, love, and kinship all rolled in one.

"My dad used to take me here all the time when I was little."

Duck cuts a puzzled look at him. That doesn't sound like a come-on of any sort.

Buddy leans forward, his linked hands braced on his knees. "They're building a resort here. Ground breaks the first of next month."

That's news to Duck. "How do you know that?"

"The mayor came over for dinner last night. He and my granddad were talking about it. It's a done deal. They'll announce it tomorrow."

The resort has been talked about for literally years. Most folk don't believe it will ever really happen. Duck doesn't care one way or another, but he knows his dad is for it. His dad thinks it'd be a good source of income for the Island, another attractive draw for tourists, not to mention another place that might need his services as de facto handyman.

From Buddy's tone, though, he doesn't think Buddy feels the same way.

"They're building over everything," Buddy says, sounding disgusted, as if this is a personal offense to him. Maybe he feels like it is. His great-grandfather had founded the town. "Yeah, okay, tourists will come. But only for four, five months out of the year. And what do they come to see? The land, of course. The land that we're covering up with shopping plazas and parking lots. What are we going to do when there's nothing left?"

It sounds like a rhetorical question, but Duck feels uncomfortably as if he should be able to find an answer for the obviously agitated boy.

"There's still Wilby Watch," he says.

Buddy gives a brief laugh. Suddenly, deep blue eyes are looking at him, above a soft smile, a little sad. "Yeah. You're right, Duck. There's still the Watch."

It's a bit of a jolt to hear his name from Buddy's mouth. He'd thought almost that Buddy was just thinking out loud.

"They won't build on the Watch. Mayor Tucker loves that place," he adds reassuringly. He feels compelled somehow to make Buddy feel better if he can.

Buddy nods and returns to staring out over the water.

Duck bounces a fist off his thigh. He's not at all sure anymore what he's doing here, but it doesn't look like Buddy is planning to leave yet. Maybe there's a reason other than environmentalism that Buddy doesn't want to see South Cape developed?

"Uh..." he starts, and Buddy turns to look at him again. "You know... I heard the queers come out here after dark. To make out. And stuff."

Buddy frowns but doesn't say anything. Duck looks away, then back. His stomach feels fluttery and hollow.

"Just wondering if you still want to be here. With me. Since it's starting to get dark now." He forces a little laugh.

Buddy's face starts to get kind of suspicious, and his mouth tightens in a mean way. Duck's heart is pounding, and he's screaming at himself in his head to run.

This is it. This is him outing himself. This is him, however obliquely, accusing _Buddy French_ of being gay.

Tomorrow, the entire lacrosse team is going to beat the crap out of him, maybe with those 'stupid nets on a stick' he'd just been talking about earlier with Tommy.

"That's not very funny," Buddy says. Surprisingly, he hasn't moved, either to leave or to punch Duck in the mouth.

"I-- I wasn't meaning to be."

"Well, then, what did you mean?" he demands quietly.

"Just..." He's backpedaling fiercely. "You wouldn't want people to think you're a fairy, right?"

Buddy starts to say something. Stops. Then starts again: "You mean 'gay'?"

"What?"

"Not 'fairy'."

"Uh. Sure. Whatever."

Buddy stares at him for a moment more, then says, pointedly, "I guess you better go. You don't want to be caught out here when 'those people' come out."

What? "That's not what I meant!" Buddy shrugs and seems to dismiss him purposefully. "Hey, I said, that's not what I meant."

Buddy looks at him again. Then he nods, like Duck's some kid apologizing for spilling the juice. "Okay."

Duck is confused as hell, not to mention mad, and relieved, and indignant, and...

But he has more sense than to get in a conversation where anything he says would come out as defensive or fake. Any worthwhile argument of innocence he can come up with seems to end in him outing himself after all. And he just doesn't want to deal with that.

He's used to people thinking whatever they want anyway.

So he leaves Buddy alone with his goddamn view, and he goes home and throws a few things around until Ms. Neil asks him what's wrong. He lies to her that he had a fight with a friend, and she makes commiserate noises which make him feel guilty, so he tells her he has to do homework in order to get her out of his room -- which makes him feel even more guilty -- and he goes to bed early instead.

Later, remembering that holier-than-thou tone makes him want to punch a wall in.

END Part 1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find information on lacrosse, the sport [HERE](http://www.lacrosse-information.com/lacrosse-positions.html)


	2. Points In Common, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Duck's dad starts suffering more and more from arthritis, and in '91, he asks Duck to come home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative Links:  
> <http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/42056.html>

With an attitude like that, it's probably not surprising that Buddy becomes a police officer.

Duck finishes high school with barely passing marks. He's just not interested in the stuff they're trying to teach him. Tommy goes to school in Vancouver, and after a year helping out his dad, Duck decides to take off for the mainland, too. He bums around for a while. His dad's taught him enough about fixing things and working with his hands so that he can get by doing various pick-up jobs and the occasional temp work.

He gets in some trouble, gets back out. Raises some hell, catches some. He meets a lot of people, and he _meets_ a few people, too. In the end, he winds up with a contract painter by the name of Erik Shinsky in Markham, Ontario. They get along great at first. He's funny in a brash way, a little hot-headed like Duck is, likes to be right. He teaches Duck his trade -- among other things.

Duck learns to talk dirty. He learns to take it slow. He learns to cook, and to take out the trash, and to kiss in the laundry room. He learns to be held in public just because it feels good. He learns to sit around bare-chested with their friends, showing off marks only a few hours old to people who roll their eyes or crack jokes about it.

Duck's dad starts suffering more and more from arthritis, and in '91, he asks Duck to come home. By that time, Duck doesn't go around shirtless anymore, not even in summer, and the laundry room is strictly for washing clothes. It's a relief, really, to get away from Erik by that point, so Duck packs up and returns to Wilby with intent to stay for a while.

He's at City Hall filing the documents for registering his new business when he sees Buddy walk by in uniform with another cop. He might not have said anything, except that Buddy comes toward them, leans up against the clerk's desk, and says to her, with a decidedly flirtatious smile, "I'm looking forward to the pie. Six o' clock, right?"

Duck watches with interest as Denise blushes and exchanges a few more words with the handsome officer.

From his now more mature point of view, Duck recognizes the reasons for his mixed feelings back when he'd run into Buddy at South Cape. He also realizes, looking at Buddy with far more experience than a sexually frustrated teenage boy had, that Buddy's not really his type. That's a relief, since he's likely to be crossing paths with a certain Officer French in town for the forseeable future.

Before Buddy leaves the desk, he glances at Duck again, then frowns slightly and lingers. His eyes go a bit hazy, as if he's trying to remember... Grinning wryly, Duck decides to help him out.

"Duck MacDonald," he prompts. While Buddy looks virtually the same as he had at nineteen, Duck's grown and filled out a lot. He's finally figured out what to do with his hair, too. It's no wonder Buddy has trouble recognizing him. "We went to school together. I was one year under yours."

"Duck!" Buddy repeats with that relieved, extra heartiness that people put on when they're pretending to recognize someone they'd completely forgotten. He smiles in what looks like genuine welcome, though. "I haven't seen you in years. How have you been?"

Duck gives him the edited brief of his life since high school. Buddy makes the appropriate listening noises and replies with his own report:

Buddy commuted to college on the mainland, which Duck knew about. He studied criminology, which Duck did not know about but is not surprised to learn. He played lacrosse for a year before he figured out that while he liked the game, he hated the travel and the inevitable politics that came up. He joined the police academy instead, and came home to Wilby as soon as a spot opened up for him.

"Best decision of my life, Duck. It's been eight years and I still love it."

His type or not, Duck's not immune to a man smiling at him like that, like the world's just one happy playground specially tailored for Buddy's enjoyment. In the same way that Duck's matured from seeing the world a bit and stretching his abilities, Buddy now evinces a more solid and dependable version of his high school earnestness. It looks good on him. Scratch that. It looks fantastic on him.

Duck's learned a lot about tact and perspective (and safety) since he was a kid, though. So he only smiles and nods like any agreeable person might -- even if, in the back of his mind, he can't help comparing Buddy's easy ways to Erik's demanding, needy ones.

"So you'll be staying in Wilby for good, then?" Buddy asks him.

"He's just registered a new business," Denise pipes up. She's probably been dying to get a word in edge-wise. "MacDonald's Quality Painting."

Buddy flashes Denise a heartstopping smile before turning back to Duck. "Painting, huh? After Mr. Milligan left, your dad's just about the only one around who does handyman work. I should say, the only islander who does. It'd be good if you could take over. People would trust you."

Duck shrugs casually, but the idea of regular work is an irrefutable draw. He can't be guaranteed jobs on the mainland, being the new man in town anywhere he settles. No matter what the songs say, a steady cash flow is the basis for _everything_. That had been a lesson learned early, even before he'd left the Island. "I might," he answers.

Truth is, he's still not sure what he's going to do. Before he'd left, Wilby had been just another place -- a tiny pinpoint on the map of Canada. The last few weeks, after so much time away, he's started really feeling like it's home. There's something about Wilby -- the people, the town, the island itself -- that feels _right_ to him.

But he's thirty-one years old, and despite Erik, there's a part of him still hoping for someone to love. He's not sure he knows how he can stay here and do that, both.

So he says again, "I'll think about it," and leaves it at that.

***

Buddy's partner, Stan Lastman, is nice in a bumbling kind of way. He's still a rookie, but he and Buddy obviously get along well, and that's probably what's more important. In a small town like Wilby, keeping the peace means more about talking nice to people and maintaining a united official presence than it is about running down crooks.

Duck doesn't know Stan real well. Stan's a third generation islander born and bred, but he's two years younger than Duck. That doesn't matter now but it was a big gap back in school, which is where Duck knows most of the people he does from. So Duck's a little surprised when one day he answers the door and the man's standing there, looking a little diffident and hopeful. "Hi, Stan. Looking for my dad?"

Stan frowns worriedly. "Maybe. My wife and I need part of our patio cover repaired. I know Mr. MacDonald can't handle that kind of thing anymore, but Brenda, she doesn't trust that mainlander outfit that's been doing all the jobs around here." He leans in, in a conspiratorial way. "I don't trust them either, actually. John Rourke was just telling me how they used _inferior_ materials for the work they done in his rec room last spring."

Duck considers this. It's clear what Stan's asking. If Duck takes this job, though, word would get around quick. The painting's not such a big deal. There's another guy -- another islander -- who does reasonably good paint jobs. Taking on this, though. It'd be like announcing that he's staying in Wilby for good.

He's been going to the mainland almost every weekend for the last three months, scouting for a place where he can relax. People don't think it's strange. He's young enough, they correctly figure that he's out for the kind of fun that Wilby can't provide -- if unclear about the specifics of it. And he's been away long enough that it's reasonable for him to go alone, perhaps even reasonable for him to have more friends on the other side of the water than on this one. So far. If he's going to settle down here, though, it would start to matter.

He's thought about moving to the mainland. If his dad ever needed him, he could be here in a couple of hours on the outside. The housing prices are much more expensive there, though, especially on the coast where he would have to live. He doesn't think he can afford it, unless his dad is willing to relocate with him and sell the house here, like Tommy's parents did. But he knows his dad would never budge on that.

"Come on, Duck. It would really help us out a lot."

Stan's round face is pleading. Duck's always been susceptible to that.

"How about I follow you in the truck and price it when I get there," he says. If he establishes a good client base and has regular need for work supplies, he'd have an even better excuse to visit the mainland more often, he tells himself. Plus, it's an extra source of income. Maybe he could even save up enough to move. "If we have the right materials on hand, I can do it today."

Stan looks relieved and grateful. Duck tells himself that has nothing to do with his decision to take the job. He's only being practical.

***

After Stan, comes Mrs. Conroy ("Call me Aunt Hetty."), Pastor Corkum ("You look _just_ like your father."), Nancy Bolt ("Remember working together that summer at Iggy's?"), and others. Then Richard Polanski, the other islander painter, gets married to a mainlander and moves to Newfoundland.

Before he knows it, Duck's days are completely filled with his work, and he's become ingrained in the rhythm and pulse of the Island.

Stan and Brenda hire him to help them renovate their guest room when their older daughter turns twelve. Betty Pearce, née Conroy, offers him a cookie with blue frosting when he's over, working on her mother's roof, and she tells him it's going to be a boy. While bringing him some juice in the middle of repainting the Corkums' living room, Mrs. Corkum worries to him about how she thinks her granddaughter is dating someone 'disreputable'. Nancy invites him to the wedding when she gets engaged to Bradley Weiner, the guy who helps Duck transport lumber.

Duck has a new truck and a thriving business, a comfortable place to live, smiles from almost everyone in town -- and also a growing sense of dissatisfaction that he can't seem to get rid of no matter how hard he tries.

***

At first, it's just winding down from work at the Loyalist with all the other guys. He pretends that he's there because he wants to play a little pool, shoot some darts. More and more, though, he just huddles at the bar.

One or two drinks turns into three or four. Or five. Or more. When he's down deep with the world turning fluid around him, he wonders why everyone else can breathe when he's drowning. Sometimes he's so caught up in this thought that he forgets to go home until Patrick calls him a cab. His dad's vision is going from bad to worse, and Ms. Neil doesn't drive at night.

His dad also has heart trouble now, and a failing liver. He refuses any but the most basic treatment, however. He's determined to die in the saddle, as he says. Conversations between the two of them are shorter and less meaningful with each passing week. There's no possible way Duck could leave him now, but it's getting more and more impossible, it seems, to stay. He feels stifled, helpless -- trapped in a hole that he's furiously digging himself into just because he can't stand still.

He goes to the Watch a few times, just to blow off steam in the dark. A little more often, he takes a trip to the mainland that's longer than necessary for supplies. But it's transitory and unsatisfying, like going to a buffet and doing nothing but smell the food. With his dad to think of, and his job, which relies on the goodwill of his clients, some part of him always knows that he can't afford to gain a 'reputation'.

So he works on gaining a different one instead.

It gets so that six days out of seven, he's pouring himself into bed. He can see his dad's stony disapproval, but he's realized by now that his dad is powerless over him. The other residents of Wilby don't like it either, but they shake their heads and look the other way. Being a _drunk_ is something that they can tolerate.

Occasionally, he wonders with malicious humor what his dad would say if he knew what exactly his son had gotten up to on the mainland all those years away.

He thinks of Erik more and more, the bastard.

On his fortieth birthday, he has a discussion with a bottle of brandy, and the two of them decide that he needs to celebrate, big-time. He cancels all his jobs for the day and hops a ferry to the mainland, where he lets the blackness suck him away for twelve hours that he will never be able to recall.

His dad was the one who'd always said it: _"You live the way you live, son. If somebody don't like it -- fuck 'em."_

On the ferry home, he slumps himself into a seat on the second floor after an attendant hustles him out of his truck where he would have been happy to stay. Across from him, a couple of tipsy-looking middle-aged men are chatting about Island gossip. They have the look of islanders, but Duck doesn't think he knows them.

They must not have recognized him either, because one of them starts recounting the story of how 'old man MacDonald' had met his 'whore'.

"A nurse, my bloody arse! Where'd she get her nursing degree, I'd like to know? A crackerjack box?"

"In Halifax, more like."

"Naw, I hear she's a classy bitch. Betcha she went to school overseas -- _Amsterdam_."

Another thing that Duck has realized now that he's older is that those mouthy kids in grade school had it more right than they knew when they called Ms. Niel a slut. Although she and his dad still skirt the subject with Duck of how they met, Duck has the feeling that it might have been on one of those weekends when Mrs. Kaufmann took him in while his dad went to the mainland to 'grieve'.

Still, though, the words burrow into his brain like hornets and make him see red.

Maybe it's because all of a sudden, he's not hearing _slut_ (queer), or _bitch_ (freak), or _whore_ (fairy), but something else.

In a heartbeat, he's out of his seat. Both of the guys are big, and far less incapacitated than he, but Duck's learned all sorts of things over the years.

Duck is still a scrawny guy -- and he still knows how to fight.

He has to be pulled bodily off of whomever it is he's whaling on at the moment by several pairs of strong arms. He goes limp only when he realizes that there are flashing red and blue lights in his vision, and then he stands stock-still and stares around in shocked confusion.

"It's MacDonald's boy," he hears someone say in a voice that sounds tired and pitying. "We'll have to take him in this time. Olsen, get his car."

Numbly, he hands over his keys to a young officer, and he's urged by another into a car with leather seats. Fearfully, he touches the grill between him and the front. Then he touches his face. Something's bleeding.

The jail cell has a pair of bunk beds on one side, a commode on the other, and a sink in between. It's clean and quiet. The blankets smell faintly of detergent. If it weren't for the fact that Duck feels so miserably ashamed of being here, it wouldn't be too bad a place to spend the night. A stern-faced, elderly nurse cleans and patches him up, all the time chiding him for becoming influenced by 'nasty mainlander ways'. After she leaves him alone, he buries his face in the white, unmarred pillow and wills himself to fall unconscious. Eventually, he does.

It's Buddy French who comes to get him at some indeterminate time during the night that he will later know is just past two in the morning.

Amid his haze, he finds himself chagrined at the state he must be in. Mumbling thick-tongued apologies, he fingercombs his hair and tries to flatten out the stained wrinkles in his shirt.

Buddy doesn't seem to notice. He simply unlocks the cell door and tells him, "You're free to go."

That confuses him. He knows he's still drunk. He knows he hurt some people. Possibly badly. "That's it? You don't need to, uh, detain me for a day or something? Charge me a fine?"

Buddy bites his bottom lip in that curiously childish gesture he has, and then he straightens himself to look directly into Duck's face. "Your father's in hospital, Duck. He had a stroke."

***

Buddy drives him there in his patrol car. Duck remembers every agonizingly long second of that ride, adrenaline searing him sober in a rush.

He doesn't remember getting out of the car, running to the elevator, charging up two flights of stairs when the elevator doesn't come fast enough, wheeling first left, then right, toward and then into room 302, where Ms. Neil is sobbing into a handkerchief beside a hospital bed.

He does have a sharp memory of looking back as he hears Buddy pounding up behind him. He remembers the way the creases of Buddy's hands whiten briefly as he catches himself in the doorway. He remembers watching Buddy slow his breaths deliberately, all the time staring into Duck's eyes as if willing him to do the same. He remembers the expression on Buddy's face just before he gestures gently with his chin toward the head of the bed.

He remembers seeing his father in that bed. The sheets are pulled up to just above his waist. His arms are exposed, an IV in the crook of his left arm. Where the hospital gown doesn't cover him, his skin seems thin and brittle like peeling paint. Lines snake out of his chest, which barely moves, though the monitor beside him shows that he is breathing. His heartbeat is merely an electronic flash and sound.

Paul Nicholas MacDonald never wakes up. He passes away ten days later at 4:53 A.M.

***

Duck stands on the porch of his father's house, now his. It's a Monday afternoon in early July, and the breeze today is quiet, the air warm. July was always the month that showed Wilby off at its finest.

He hears the sound of the door closing and locking, and Ms. Neil comes up to stand beside him. She's holding only her purse and a carpetbag. Most of her things have already been shipped to her sister's place in Toronto, including the few items that Duck's father left her.

Duck offers his left arm and reaches out with the right to take her luggage. She smiles and allows herself to be led down the porch steps to the car. After she's settled herself in the high seat of the truck, he passes the carpetbag back to her, and as it exchanges hands, Duck notices that she is wearing the ring. The ring that had belonged to Mina MacDonald. Paul MacDonald had bequeathed it to her in an unspoken promise that came too late -- if it had ever been meant to be made on this side of death.

It's such a waste, Duck thinks viciously. Why hadn't his dad taken the chance? Why couldn't he have let go of the past and grasped a future that could have been his? His and Ms. Neil's. They could have had a life together as full husband and wife. No, he might never have loved the second Mrs. MacDonald as much as the first, but it had been unfair to deny the both of them the chance to try.

For all his professions of independence, his dad had not been a risk-taker. When in doubt, he had planted himself down and forced the world to flow around him. He had decided that he was going to live exactly the way he always had, simply because that was what he knew. Not because that was best.

Duck allows himself a quick sting of tears as he rounds the back of the truck, away from Ms. Neil's sight.

Forty years old, and he's just now realizing that he'll never know what it's like to have a mother. He'll never know what it's like to have that piece of normality that all of his schoolmates had taken for granted.

And he'll never know now if his father would have been able to accept him, maybe even... be proud of him.

"Will you stay here in Wilby?" Ms. Neil asks once they're on their way toward the west ferry landing. Her voice is calm and quiet. It's the voice that had soothed him when he was younger, called him to meals, asked him how his day was. But it's not a voice that has ever spoken to him with any sense of obligation or expectation. She hadn't asked him if he wanted to go with her to Toronto.

Duck looks out at the scenery that they are driving past. The leaves are bursting with the green of summer, and the air from their rolled-down windows tastes of salt and heat. The roads are clean. The people they pass look up and wave, making him think of Nancy, who wrinkled his new black shirt with a hug; Stan, who brought over casseroles Brenda made; Pastor Corkum, whose eyes were moist as he delivered the service.

Though he can't see the ferry yet, a pair of seagulls call as they wing over the sparkling blanket of the seacoast on their righthand side, and he knows the docks are just ahead. He can picture the bustle of children, cars, dogs. Battered wooden dinghies would be out on the water alongside aluminum speedboats and sailing vessels.

It's peaceful here. It's home. Wilby Island is beautiful, and he loves it.

He thinks about what his father had always said.

"Yeah," he answers softly. The rumbling of the engine almost hides his words. "I'm going to stay."

END Part 2.  


	3. Points In Common, Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Duck's been dry for one year and one month when he meets Dan Jarvis for the first time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative Links:  
> <http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/42536.html>

Duck's been dry for one year and one month when he meets Dan Jarvis for the first time. He's doing some measurements in the Whittiers' living room. Charlotte Whittier is leaning by the open front door, taking advantage of the breeze in the muggy August afternoon and chatting with Duck.

Truthfully, she's not so much chatting as _flirting_ with him. He's very aware of how she's propped her arms behind her to arch against the wall, and how she inhales a little more deeply than necessary so that her blouse gaps at the buttons, showing white skin. She laughs at his awkward, deflecting jokes, and she tosses her slightly wavy dark brown hair, all the while complaining about the heat as justification. Whenever he gets close enough, she finds a reason to put a hand on his arm.

"Are you sure you don't want something to drink, Duck? I'm about to sweat through my clothes myself. Just look at that, goodness."

"I'm fine. Thanks." He glances quickly away from how she's unbuttoning the top of her blouse and pulling the sides apart to fan herself.

Charlotte's pretty, if a little older, with a solid figure, a round face, and a charming smile. She's single and pleasant and works as a librarian in the research section. She's lonely with just her mother for company at home. Along with the booze, Duck's slowly been able to give up his resentment at the world, but he's still a little sorry -- for Charlotte's sake -- that he can't take her up on a rather blatant offer. He wishes he was better at the flirting game, so that he could at least play to her ego before finding a graceful way to turn her down.

Erik had been good at that. He could talk a cat out of a tree, and a dog away from its dinner. He could fight with you one minute and then melt you away with compliments the next -- sounding sincere all the time.

But Duck's not like that. All he can do is blush and stay quiet and do his job with his head down. He's just a dumb guy with paint-splattered overalls and a T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up, showing off his biceps as if he's inviting her to notice instead of just trying to stay cool. He's glad, suddenly, that she's left the door open. Charlotte and he are alone in the house, and gossip runs like wildfire in Wilby.

"Oh, look, it's Dan Jarvis. He and his wife just moved in last week to the house next door." Charlotte's attention shifts out to the street, and Duck decides right there and then that he _loves_ Dan Jarvis -- whoever he is. "Dan! Hello!" Charlotte's gone out onto her porch now.

After making some final notations, Duck stuffs his notepad, pencil, and measuring tape in the front pocket of his overalls and goes outside to get a glimpse of his savior.

Dan Jarvis is tall and thin, with longish, straight brown hair. He has a dour, kind of hangdog look to him that makes you want to laugh or maybe pat him on the head.

Almost immediately, Duck pegs him as closeted.

He sighs internally. He couldn't imagine getting married, himself. It's hard enough already for him, and he has the privacy of his own house to unwind in when he needs it. To have a _wife_...? He can't fathom it. But everyone lives their own way, and he doesn't pass judgment.

"I'm Duck," he says. "Hi."

Dan takes his hand and gives him a sardonic-looking smile that fits his pale face. Despite his nervous demeanor, his handshake is strong and warm. Duck is surprised to notice callouses, and he glances down at their joined hands with curiosity. "Do you play an instrument?" he asks. Dan doesn't look the sort to do hard labor or play sports very often.

"Uh, no. Why?"

Realizing that he still has Dan's hand in his, Duck drops it. He's probably blushing again. "Nothing." He gestures toward his truck. "I should go," he says. It sounds rude, and he wishes again that he weren't so hopeless at conversation. Turning to Charlotte, he says, "I have to meet someone. Sorry. I'll come back tomorrow at the same time to start work."

"Sure thing, Duck," Charlotte says easily. Her smile is no more or less pleasant than before. That's the good thing about islanders; they make allowances for each other.

"Bye, Dan. Nice meeting you," he says to the other man, with an awkward half-wave, half-bow.

Dan returns his farewell with slightly raised eyebrows.

***

It turns out that Dan likes to garden. Or maybe he just can't afford to hire a landscaper.

When Duck comes back the next day to move furniture and begin tearing out the Whittiers' baseboards so he can start painting, he passes Dan in his front yard digging a hole with a long shovel. Several pots of roses are lined up in readiness.

The day after that, while unloading the long strips of new baseboard (thicker and taller, in the modern style), and the small can of touchup paint for the room, he sees Dan digging a long furrow inside the margin of his property, probably for a new sprinkler line.

He swings by the next day to move all the furniture back and clean up any remaining mess, and this time there's a woman outside with Dan. They're planting small, bright bushels of vari-colored violets.

Dan glances up at him, then ignores him. Duck figures maybe the other man has pegged Duck, too. It's the prudent thing to avoid each other -- Duck adds Dan to his mental list -- so Duck is fine with that. However, the woman, presumably Mrs. Jarvis, calls out to him: "Hello!" and flags him down.

Duck pauses and switches a hammer and a dust cloth to join a leftover paint tray in his left hand, then wipes his right hand on the pants of his overalls before offering it to her. She's smiling in understanding, stripping off her own dirt-stained gardening gloves, which match her work smock. Both look brand new -- probably purchased from Greta's Garden after they moved here.

"I'm Val," she says. "You must be Duck. Charlotte told me you do wonderful work."

He smiles, slightly abashed, and lets her take his hand in both of hers and pump it up and down.

She isn't going to last long, is his first thought. He tries not to let it show on his face, but he can tell already that she isn't going to be happy here in the long term. People with the sort of restless energy that she has have never fit in on Wilby Island. Duck's seen it a countless number of times before, in island-born kids who couldn't wait to run away, and from visitors who were charmed into thinking they wanted to stay but discovered otherwise later on.

That's another reason not to get too close to Dan. He'll be leaving soon enough. Five years at the most, Duck judges.

Speaking of which, Dan sidles up alongside his wife, not possessively, but rather like a child tagging along after his big sister. "This is Dan, my husband," Val introduces him. Dan waves but doesn't step forward.

"We've met," Duck tells her.

"Oh, great! Then we'll skip all that. Here's the thing, Duck. We need to repaint the exterior of our house, but what with the move and everything... Well, I don't think we can afford to hire you. I was wondering if we could pay you some sort of consultation fee. We'll do the work ourselves, but any advice you could give us would be wonderful. Wouldn't it, Dan?" She turns to include her husband.

Dan smiles. "Yeah."

"For instance, what kind of supplies do we need. How long will it take everything to dry. We don't know the weather here, of course. And heavens, we've never _painted a house_ before! Have we, Dan?"

"No," Dan concurs readily.

"Charlotte says you've been painting for over twenty years. And she has such nice things to say about you all the time. I feel already like I can trust you with anything. Isn't that right, Dan?"

"Yup." Dan remains straight-faced, except for a flicker of movement at his lips, and slight creases at the corners of his eyes as he looks at his wife. Duck figures out that Dan is trying not to laugh! Val must sense his attention wandering, because she glances suspiciously at her husband and then -- startling Duck -- slaps him on the arm.

"You evil man! What have you been doing?"

"Nothing, Val. I agree with you whole-heartedly in every way."

Val pretends to splutter angrily, but they're both smiling at what must be a running joke between them. They're _friends_ , Duck realizes suddenly, surprised.

"Anyway, what do you think?" Val finishes, turning back to him anxiously.

Duck thinks for a moment, still a bit nonplussed. Finally, he decides he won't treat them differently from the way he would treat any friend of his. Islander, mainlander, it doesn't matter. "You don't need to pay me," he answers. "I give people advice all the time."

"No, no, we don't want to take advantage."

Duck shakes his head slowly. "Call it a welcome gift."

"But you don't need to."

"That's why it's a gift." She looks pleased.

"You're the best. Really. At least let's talk over lunch then. Our treat. Are you free today?"

That takes him by surprise. He catches the startled look on Dan's face, too.

"I'll be setting up at the store today, Val, but you two can have lunch without me," Dan demurs.

"You can do that tomorrow," Val admonishes immediately, but Dan shakes his head.

"No, you two go ahead. That is, if Duck is all right with it."

"Oh, all right. Duck?"

Duck looks from one urging face to the other, reviews his own schedule in his head, and finally agrees. "Sounds good. Thank you."

He tells himself there's no reason he should feel disappointed.

***

Val asks him to choose the restaurant. He picks Eddie's Sandwiches first, but she insists on a nicer place, so they wind up at the Loyalist. Trying to be courteous, he orders the meatloaf. Again, Val overrides him and suggests a steak with clam chowder instead. She's perfectly friendly about it, but there's an established authority to her 'suggestions' that makes Duck wonder about her and Dan's home life.

Before their food arrives, and most of the way through their meal, she plies him with questions about the job she wants to do. She takes quick notes on a steno pad she pulls from her knit bag purse. He feels like he's being interviewed by a very eager tabloid reporter. It's kind of fun. She makes house-painting sound exciting and risqué.

As they talk, though, his original assessment of five years keeps falling: four, maybe three, possibly only one if the resale price goes up. She'll hate it here, he thinks, and he finds that he's sad about that.

***

Since meeting the Jarvises, Duck's feeling antsy.

He and Dan continue to avoid each other, but he can't help running into either or both of them every now and again. There's only a few good eateries in town, and the one hardware store.

Jarvis Video seems to do reasonably well. Duck drives by without stopping in, but he hears that Dan has retired most of the French language films that used to populate the shelves of Deluke Video and replaced them with more popular entertainment and a collection of westerns. Dan hires someone else to make the new store sign, or else he does it himself.

Dan and Val go to the usual festivals and potlucks. They're friendly to everyone and obviously affectionate with each other. They're never seen being quite intimate, but then, many couples aren't in public. Duck starts to wonder if his original assessment was correct, or if maybe he's just jealous of a happily married man whom he finds immensely, unreasonably attractive.

Yes, all right. He must admit it to himself at some point, and he does.

Dan's tall, lean, somewhat goofy looks make Duck melt inside in a way he hasn't felt in a long time. His fingers itch to touch that always neatly combed hair. He's curious to kiss that crooked smile.

It's _crazy_ , and he knows it. He hardly knows the man, and whether he's gay or no, Dan is clearly in a committed, seemingly mutually beneficial relationship with his wife. Not to mention, no matter how comfortable Dan seems to be here, Val is going to want to leave Wilby sooner or later, and Dan will undoubtedly follow her.

Yet, Duck can't stop himself from following Dan with his eyes whenever they meet. He can't stop watching and cataloguing the expressions that chase across that sensitive, gentle face. There's something about Dan that makes Duck want to... protect him, maybe. No, not that. He wants to share. He wants to show Dan every single exciting, beautiful, unusual thing he's ever experienced. He wants to shock the laconic pleasantry from the man.

He thinks that to have Dan's undivided attention -- passion -- must be a fine thing.

Which is, again, crazy.

So he goes about his business like a normal human being. He does his job, keeps up with his acquaintances. Maintains his house and his truck. Votes for the new mayor.

He pays a visit to Wilby Watch one night in late March. He hasn't been there in almost a year, he realizes. The smell of the coast is what he remembers, but the buzz in his veins is less practiced than it'd used to be.

As soon as he leaves the cover of the shrubbery toward the beach, he catches sight of a familiar-seeming figure.

It's a moment of déjà vu.

The beach isn't the same, of course, and the man's not the same, but it's almost more surreal to see Dan Jarvis there on Wilby Watch than it had once been to meet Buddy French at South Cape.

Like Buddy, Dan has his back to Duck before he turns to face him.

Unlike Buddy, Dan's eyes widen in recognition. And the way he licks his lips and then starts breathing silently through his mouth is most definitely not because of the natural scenery.

Duck doesn't say anything. He lets himself be drawn toward the other man until they are standing, facing one another. By moonlight, every nuance of Dan's features stands out. His eyes are shadowed, alive and soulful. He raises a hand toward Duck's face but stops halfway, frozen. Duck jerks his head toward the trees -- and it's the work of a moment before they're there.

He gasps as he is pushed up against rough bark. Fingers tangle in his hair and pull his head back, causing him to flinch minutely -- but that's soon forgotten, with hot breath on his neck and a lithe, broad back to explore.

It's not long before there's the slide of heated flesh in his hand and accompanying jags of moans in his ear. Hands fumble half-heartedly at his pants, but he's too busy dragging the other man closer and touching him everywhere, everywhere he can reach to let them make any progress.

Dan tenses and curls against him, shaking, when he comes. Duck feels the hum of the other man's muscles against his skin. Pushing up, he flips them around so that Dan can lean against the tree. He puts his head back immediately, like he's about to collapse.

They're under cover, of course, but a breeze must have picked up at just the right moment, because the leafy shadows across Dan's face whip away for half a second, and Duck glimpses a relaxed, openly radiant expression on Dan's face that he's never seen before. Never imagined.

 _I did that_ , Duck thinks, dumbfounded. He stares, rapt, at Dan's face, even though he can no longer see it clearly. A surge of affection and pride licks up his body. Even his throbbing insistence takes a backseat to that feeling. _I'll bet his wife can't make him look that way._

Then the hands are back at the opening to his pants, and Duck has to concentrate on locking his knees and bracing his arms because that is Dan's mouth and those are Dan's fingers and this is them together on Wilby Watch under the stars on a Saturday night.

And it's-- There's something-- He doesn't-- They can't--

He comes. Of course he does. Dan's large, calloused hands are every bit as magical as he had imagined. But even as he's heaving long breaths and feeling the tingle reverberate in spasming waves from his groin up and down his spinal column -- he knows his heart is beating faster from something else as well.

All of a sudden, his mind is clamoring, _Get out, get out, get out!_ and he's buttoning himself up and he's babbling something ("Thank you"? "See you around"? "The orange toucans fly in threes"?) and there's branches in his face, then trail dirt under his boots, then the dense slam of a door, and finally the cool cocoon of his truck cab.

He wraps slightly shaky fingers around the steering wheel and lowers his forehead to rest on the top rim. He gropes for his smokes and gets one lit with steadier hands. He doesn't open the window, so a haze forms lazily around him as he thinks. He's calm enough now to figure out what had propelled him away from there, and he doesn't like it.

For the first time since he's been dry, he feels shame.

But it doesn't make sense. Dan had been there of his own free will. Both of them had been sober. It's not the best thing that Dan's a married man, but Duck's had a married man before. He hadn't felt real proud about it, but it hadn't thrown him into a panic like now.

John Rourke, though... He hadn't ever bought gifts for his wife. He'd never picked flowers for her. He'd never been seen talking to her with a smile on his face like Dan has with Val. Come to think of it, no one had ever seen John and Lena angry at each other either, while Dan and Val seem to have fights every other week.

Dan and Val have a real relationship, and that's the difference. No matter how much Duck desires him physically, he has a problem with coming between two people who have a genuine promise to each other. And if he's honest with himself...

If he's honest with himself, he'll admit that he doesn't want Dan to be the sort of person who spits in the face of his marriage vows. He doesn't want Dan to step out on Val, who while abrasive in some ways is basically a nice person. He wants Dan to be... _good_ and _decent_ , the way Duck thinks of him.

And he doesn't want to be just another body in the dark to him.

Duck bangs his head against the steering wheel, because he thinks he knows this feeling. He knows he's in trouble.

He's fallen in love.

***

Perhaps 'love' isn't quite the word for it. _Blind obsession_ or _idiotic crush_ might be better descriptors.

When his father met his mother for the first time, he knew with utter certainty that he wanted to marry her. Love hit him like a two-by-four, his dad had always said, the dozens of times he had repeated the story, even after Ms. Niel came to live with them. When Duck was little, he thought it completely reasonable, because it was just like in the fairytales. A little older, and he thought it was romantic. As a wiser, more cynical adult, Duck thought maybe his dad had just been drinking too much.

Now he knows it was probably very close to a literal description -- violent, concussion-inducing, and out of the blue. He can almost feel the rectangular bruise forming on the base of his skull.

He can't change his own feelings, not the shame nor the cause of it. He does start avoiding Dan Jarvis like the goddamn plague, though. And he never, never returns to the Watch again. He doesn't know if Dan does. He doesn't want to know.

He hasn't taken a stool at the Loyalist's bar since his dad passed away. He's pretty certain that he shouldn't be here now. He sees a couple of people he recognizes who give him frowning looks. So, hunching his shoulders, he orders a ginger ale and sits nursing it until people stop watching him. By that time, though, he's got his head back on straight again, and he doesn't bother to get anything else.

A shuffling beside him makes him look up from contemplating getting out his smokes -- cigarettes always taste strange with soda -- and a man sits on the stool next to him.

"Duck. Hi."

Buddy gives him a cautiously assessing look. He's not in uniform, and it's not his business anyway, but Duck has to resist the urge to point out that he's not drinking anything he shouldn't.

Instead, he attempts a smile and says, "Hi, Buddy."

"Didn't expect to see you here."

The smile slips. "It's a public place."

"Sure, sure. A draft, please?" he says to Patrick, who nods and briskly pulls down a glass mug. He taps the fingers of one hand rapidly against the countertop for a few seconds, then asks Duck, "Were you getting one?"

Duck narrows his eyes at the man. Is this a test? He's tempted to demand, _"Yeah, why?"_ , but instead he jerks his head and says, "No."

Buddy looks relieved. Duck wishes he would just get up and leave. Mission accomplished, right? But he knows Buddy better than that. Indeed, the man hangs around and tries to make small talk.

Partway through some rambling musings about Canadian detective novels, Duck decides to cut Buddy off and save them both.

He says the first thing that comes to mind: "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure." Buddy's curious and expectant.

"You've been married for a while now, right?"

"Yes...?" Buddy's face registers wariness.

"How did you know Carol was the one?"

There's an odd look on Buddy's face that shifts into something sad, or maybe angry, before flattening out entirely. "What do you mean?"

"There had to be something that made you pick her. Hell, you dated half the Island, didn't you? And nobody here was good enough for you." Buddy's face is going rigid, and Duck feels like maybe he should stop. But he feels even more like being stubborn, so he forges on. Maybe it's the mood he's in plus being here in the bar. That ginger ale is starting to feel like something else. "Why did you marry her?"

"What business is it of yours?"

Thankfully, it is ginger ale, so he can tell that Buddy's expression is definitely anger this time. It's like breaking the surface of the water. "None," he says quickly. He shrugs, irritated at himself and trying to project apology.

Buddy married a mainlander four years ago, after a whirlwind romance that had set the whole Island up in a months-long flurry. She's from out west, is the story. She set herself up as a real estate broker in Wilby for reasons unknown, fell in love with (or seduced, or bribed, or strong-armed, depending who's telling it) Buddy French, and stayed as his wife.

Word is that she dumped her boyfriend for him. Everyone knows that _he_ dumped Alice Hunting for _her_ \-- not that it had been all too serious between them. But Alice is an islander. And the right ethnicity.

Duck wonders what gossip he missed all those years he was too soused to care.

"Why are you asking?" Buddy's watching him with what Duck thinks are probably his 'cop' eyes -- considering, and colder than his usual affable gaze.

Duck shrugs again. "No reason. I wasn't prying," he clarifies. "I was thinking of something else."

"Hm." Buddy takes a few slow swallows of his beer. Duck can smell the sour-sweet tang of it, and his insides tighten up with sudden yearning. He averts his eyes and drains his ginger ale instead. He shouldn't be here.

Story of his life.

Buddy's voice yanks him out of his thoughts: "Something bothering you, Duck?"

"I'm fine."

"You don't look it."

"I said, I'm fine." He leans back, ostensibly to look for Patrick. "Can I get another one?" he demands. Unflappable, Patrick scoops a cold bottle of soda out of the fridge and opens it in front of him. Duck guzzles a third of it as soon as he sets it down.

Buddy frowns at him for a moment. Then he turns his attention to his own drink. His thumb smoothes slow circles against the condensation-damped sides of his mug -- the droplets beading and joining and sliding down, almost hypnotic.

"She made me feel special."

"Huh?" He cuts a look at the other man, but Buddy's not looking back.

"Carol. Being with her. I felt different when I was with her. Different in a good way."

"Oh. That's why you married her?"

"Yup."

"How about now?"

"What?"

"Does she still make you feel that way?"

"Yeah. Sometimes, I guess."

It's Duck's turn to study the other man. When Duck's depressed about something, he tends to shut himself down and put all his focus on the outside world. Buddy seems to withdraw into himself. He's speaking to Duck, but he might as well be addressing his beer.

"Everything felt perfect when we first started out. Carol's the first woman I've ever clicked like that with. Before her, I'd never been able to stick with anyone for more than a month or two. I figured we were meant to be together."

Duck grunts in acknowledgement. People have always liked to confide in him. Tommy had told him once he has a trustworthy face. Whatever that means.

"Have you ever dated anyone long-term?" Buddy asks him suddenly.

This is dangerous territory. Duck hesitates. He should just ignore the question, brush it off. But he doesn't want to drop Buddy like that. And it feels good to have a normal conversation, even if he can't say much. "Yeah," he answers. He reviews his pronouns, in case he needs them. "Almost three years."

Buddy whistles, low. "That's pretty long-term, all right. So why didn't you marry her?"

Duck ignores the obvious answer and replies with the important one: "We weren't right for each other."

"How did you know?"

"Trust me. I knew." Too bad it'd taken Erik longer to catch a clue.

"How could you tell when to keep trying and when to break it off?" It's kind of funny that _Buddy French_ is asking him this. In all seriousness, too, it sounds like. Duck lets a smile creep onto his face.

"Sometimes you don't." Reminded of his own situation, he shrugs. "Sometimes you know, but you can't do either one."

That seems to get Buddy's attention. "Why are you here tonight?" he asks, voice slow and careful. When Duck doesn't answer, he asks, shrewdly, "Having some woman troubles yourself?"

Duck barks a laugh. "No. Don't have those," he answers recklessly.

Those thick eyebrows go up. "Someone I know?"

It's enough that Duck grimaces. He looks around, but nobody is paying attention to them. "It's complicated."

The quality of Buddy's silence goes from merely curious to suspiciously probing. Duck wilts under it. It's a good thing he's not a career criminal.

"She's married, okay?" he says, shortly, and he feels an edge of satisfaction when Buddy's eyes widen.

"Shit."

Yeah. Succinct.

"Does she feel the same way?"

"No." He remembers the excited pleasure on Dan's face right after he turned around and recognized Duck. He remembers that rapturous expression a little later on. "I don't know."

"You two...?" Buddy's looking uncomfortable. Evidently, he's picked up the gist of what Duck's not saying. He feels a blush stealing up his neck. At the same time, he feels an exhale of relief to finally share what's been driving him insane for months.

"It's complicated," he repeats gruffly. Again, story of his life.

"Yeah. Love's like that."

Buddy holds up his mug. Shooting him a look, Duck picks up his bottle to meet him halfway. The glass receptacles clink, dull but serviceable. This time, he watches Buddy drink, and it's not so bad. He holds the sweet, sharp fizz of his soda in his mouth before swallowing it. He consciously doesn't pretend it's something else.

Buddy drains his mug and sets it aside. He glances toward the empty game tables. "Ten dollars for the eight ball?"

"All right."

They don't talk anymore the rest of the evening. But Duck's feeling both a little more jumbled and a little more settled inside.

***

He's thinking about Buddy two years later in a dark parking lot. He's thinking about what it means to feel special, and what it means to be faithful. He's thinking about his dad. He's thinking about Ms. Neil wearing another woman's ring. He's thinking about Erik. He's trying not to think about how scared he is right now.

 _"You live the way you live, son. If somebody don't like it -- fuck 'em,"_ his dad had said. Except his dad had been wrong.

It does matter what people think. You just have to realize which people matter. Maybe that's the hardest part.

He rolls down the driver-side window and lights a cigarette. The practiced movement calms him, the snap of his lighter, the floating sensation of the smoke in his lungs, the cool-hot burn as he breathes it out. He pulls the sides of his jacket closed against the night breeze.

Two years.

For two years, he's kept his distance -- physically, or if circumstances failed that, at least emotionally. All the times he'd sought out a tall brunette with languid eyes only to turn away at the last moment. All the times he hadn't. All the times he'd crossed paths with Val Jarvis and waited in both dread and hope for her to say, _"We're leaving Wilby next week."_ All the times he'd let himself fantasize about Dan Jarvis showing up at his door and saying, _"I'm getting a divorce."_

He coughs a laugh. Unbelievable.

But here he is. And there Dan is. Duck will probably grow old and papery and die unnoticed on this siren of an island, but who knows where Dan will be tomorrow?

It has to happen tonight.

He has to try.

_"You live the way you live, son."_

He can't change who he is or how he feels. He can't change anyone's ultimate destiny, much less his own. But he can try to make a small difference for himself. He can stop letting the world simply flow past him. He can choose.

He will.

He grinds the butt out and stares again at the lit room with the car out front. There's no movement around, and the night seems to be waiting, just like he is. He pulls his lighter back out and hunches down to light a new cigarette. He lays his head back against the headrest and takes a deep breath, feeling the welcome burn in his stretched throat. He lets himself go blind for a moment, lets the calm enter him, lets his nerves transform into acceptance.

One way or another, it'll be over tonight.

END Part 3.  


	4. Points In Common, Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Duck's finishing up what looks like the second coat of paint when Buddy drives up in his patrol car and parks by the curb._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative Links:  
> <http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/42817.html>

Duck's finishing up what looks like the second coat of paint when Buddy drives up in his patrol car and parks by the curb. He's sure Duck must have heard him, but he doesn't bother turning around. He remembers the grim set of Duck's jaw this morning as he'd asked, "Are we done, then?" A minute later, he'd been back outside with a power sander. Buddy can understand why Duck had foregone the far simpler solution of painting over the damage.

It looks like it had been enough. Buddy doesn't think Duck would have had time to rip out the sidings of his house and replace them, as well as finish painting, not in just a single day.

He's glad.

Just in case Duck hadn't simply been ignoring him, he consciously deepens his tread on the gravel driveway and then clears his throat as he approaches the other man. "Hi, Duck."

Duck grunts in reply and glances over his shoulder, but he doesn't lower the roller. He flicks his eyes over Buddy's face, then turns back to his work, apparently having read all he needed to know.

"I'm sorry, Duck. We don't have any proof, and Mrs. Weiner and Mrs. Deluke still insist that their husbands were at home the whole time. I gave them a warning, for what it's worth. The best we could do officially was to put our suspicions on record in the file."

Duck waves tiredly. Despite Buddy's hopes, Duck obviously hadn't been expecting much better.

He considers simply leaving, but this case is too familiar to him. The covered, broken windows leer at him in the failing light, and the fresh paint smell turns his stomach. It makes his skin itch, and it makes him want to offer some sort of comfort to the other man. "I wish I could do more to help. I know this is hard." The reaction is immediate, like lit gun powder.

"What the _fuck_ do you know?" Duck drops the roller in the pan, which is fortunately almost empty. The paint splatters harmlessly onto the surrounding grass and the legs of Duck's already splattered workclothes as he turns to glare at Buddy.

It's startling to see Duck angry. Buddy's grown used to seeing the man still and calm. It seems more like the stillness of a predator now. His whipcord body radiates danger, even in his clumsy, battered overalls.

The next moment, though, the anger drains away. Or perhaps, it has retreated back underneath the mask that Duck shows to the world. Duck turns away and begins picking up his supplies -- paintbrushes and roller and efficiently re-covered cans. Buddy steps forward to help fold up the ladder and then to carry it. Duck gives him a look, neither encouraging nor discouraging, then wordlessly heads around back. Buddy follows him, and together they clean what tools need it at the outdoor waterspout and then store everything in the shed.

Buddy watches Duck lock his shed and recognizes with a pang that the lock is new. A wise precaution, he sadly agrees.

Then they're standing there, face to face. The gathering dusk is heavy with humidity and birdcalls mixed with the sounds of emerging insects. Duck's placid face is as hard to read as always. Buddy wonders uncomfortably what, if anything, he's hiding right now.

"Smoke?" Duck asks, gesturing toward his back porch.

After a second of surprise, Buddy replies, "Sure." Duck's already sitting down on one end of the second step. Buddy joins him and mirrors his actions of pulling out his pack and lighter. The familiar heft and taste of a cigarette between his lips is comforting, though the taste doesn't quite obliterate the odor of Duck's trade clinging to the man beside him. He clears his throat, uneasy. "Did I ever tell you how I met Carol?"

"No." Duck's voice is flat. Incurious. Not hostile, though. Buddy waits as Duck takes his first drag and breathes out twin streams of smoke through his nostrils before continuing.

"Stan and I took a call for a vandalism. Carol's call. The front windows of her house had been broken, some potted plants smashed." The senselessness of it grits his teeth once more. He remembers looking around at the desolation and feeling shocked and so incredibly -- disappointed in his fellow Man.

"Someone had spraypainted 'Go back to China, you stupid Chink bitch' on the door." Which hadn't even been accurate, since Carol is of Korean descent. But the untruth of the statement did not make it any less hurtful.

He can still see Carol's face, distraught and so very, very angry. Her petite frame, in a fine cardigan thrown over a too-thin nightdress, had been shaking.

Duck winces. Despite his studied aloofness, Buddy has seen glimpses over the years of Duck's empathetic side. "Did you catch who did it?"

Buddy knocks the ash end of his cigarette against his shoe, expelling a frustrated breath. "Yeah. Turned out, her real estate brokerage was doing so well, one of her competitors thought she was stealing business." Prejudice is usually piggybacked on other base motives. "She was, but legitimately. Carol was always dedicated to her work, and even islanders appreciate that over blind loyalty."

"So what happened to him? Or her."

"Nothing. Oh, he paid a fine. But the judge didn't make him pay for the damages because he dismissed them as 'negligible'. The judge was retiring that year. I think he just didn't want to cause trouble by siding with a mainlander. It was all a ridiculous farce. But the good thing is, news got around, what the guy had done, and people didn't like it. Eventually he went out of business, and he moved away."

"That ended not too badly. I guess."

"In some ways, yeah. She should never have had to go through that, though."

Duck seems to consider that for the space of a few more drags on his rapidly dwindling smoke. "How about after you were married?"

"A few incidents. Mostly personal sorts of things. If it gives you any hope, there haven't been any problems for us for nearly five years. I don't mean that I can imagine what it's going to be like for you. I'm just trying to say that, people can learn to accept change. Eventually."

"Some people on the mainland have already accepted change."

That disturbs Buddy on an intrinsic level. First, because of the implied insult against Wilby, his home. Second, because it illustrates starkly the dichotomy that Wilby has had to battle since the beginning -- that of 'mainlander' versus 'islander'. It's especially disconcerting that a man who is being singled out should bring up this divide himself.

As if he, too, realizes the import of his words, Duck firms his jaw and looks defiant.

"Do you think you'd have fewer enemies on the mainland?"

Duck's voice is bitter as he replies, "Maybe not. But at least they wouldn't be people I know. Friends."

Buddy grimaces in sympathy at the pain in that sentiment. He draws on his faith in the people of Wilby Island as best he can when he answers, "People here, they feel passionately. But it's the good as well as the bad. There's people here who care about you for real, Duck. On a personal level. You don't have that on the mainland, not the same way. That's what I missed most while I was away."

Duck had spent a much longer time away than he, Buddy knows. Had he resented coming back?

He tries to imagine what kind of life Duck has had to lead up till now -- secrecy under his innocent exterior, all that hidden anger under his outward calm. The years where he spent abusing himself with drink. Had that been only about his sick father, as everyone assumed?

He wonders why Duck had decided to stay on Wilby after his father passed away. What held him here? Buddy had told Mackenzie Fisher that Wilby is a fine place to live because of the people, the weather, and the land. Certainly, he has always thought so, but perhaps it isn't true for Duck. The small-minded people had betrayed Duck. The wet winter weather had perhaps helped kill his father. And the land... The land is almost all gone.

That last thought tickles something in his mind, but an unexpected laugh from Duck, heavy with sarcasm, dislodges a memory before it can form.

"The personal touch. I'll keep that in mind next time I get a window broken."

Buddy sighs. "You know, I always felt that Carol and I were able to get through a lot of hard times because we had each other. I think it's a great help to have someone who will stick by you, like you and Dan Jarvis could." He wants Duck to know that he supports them. That he is one of those people who cares.

Duck stiffens. "I don't think you're qualified to give relationship advice," he says, with a deep scowl.

Buddy feels himself go hot with shame. How could he have forgotten? "I... I don't mean..." He finds himself biting his lower lip, a nervous habit he can't seem to break himself of. "Sandra and I didn't--"

"Save it." Duck glares at a spot to the side, his jaw working.

Buddy falls silent. He certainly can't defend himself. If Duck hadn't been there, he's not sure that he and Sandra _wouldn't_ have. He's disgusted with himself, and suddenly angry at the mindless people who lay blame of society's downfall at the feet of people like Duck, when it should be Buddy being vilified. He tenses and sits forward, getting ready to make his excuses and leave Duck alone.

"Fuck." The brief oath drops between them, freezing Buddy mid-move. Duck's bouncing a closed fist on the top of his thigh, and that tickle comes back. But Duck's voice again brushes it away. "Dan and I met at the Watch once," he imparts in a quiet, almost angry voice.

Buddy blinks, and the implications of the apparent non sequitur sink in slowly, leaving shock in their wake. He sags back against the step behind him. "You two were already...?" _Having an affair_ , he doesn't finish.

"No." Duck pierces him with a sharp gaze. "It was just that one time. He was _married_. And he and Val were... real. You don't mess with that."

"But you must have known he was married before you..." He's more uncomfortable than he would have thought. He likes to count himself an enlightened man, but his mind nevertheless skitters away when he tries to imagine two men -- two men he _knows_ , Jesus -- having sex.

"Yeah." Duck blows out a breath. "It's complicated."

That sparks a memory. A different one but clearer. "The married woman," he exclaims. "That--" He lowers his voice. "That was Dan?"

Duck startles. Perhaps he had forgotten telling Buddy about that. "Yeah." He smiles wryly. "I told you it was complicated, didn't I?"

Buddy busies himself with stubbing out the butt of his cigarette as he gathers his thoughts. He realizes something that had somehow slipped through the cracks of even his recent shift in world view. He has to come to terms with the fact that Duck MacDonald has _always been_ gay. It isn't only the future that Buddy has to consider (on both a professional and personal level). Every conversation and interaction they've ever had in the past... he has to rearrange them, filter them according to this new fact.

"The... relationship you had. The one that didn't work out." It must have been with a man. On the mainland, Duck had met a man, one whom he had... had a relationship with for a number of years. Good god. What if he had brought this man back with him to Wilby? A stranger. Would it ever have worked out?

Duck's face tightens. "That's not important right now."

"No, of course not. I'm sorry." He actually holds up his hands as if to take the words back. He's being rude. He's acting like Duck is some foreign stranger himself, even though Buddy's known him since at least high school. But Duck _is_ a stranger. Buddy feels like he's truly meeting him for the first time.

He stares openly at Duck, even knowing that he shouldn't. It's the same short blond hair atop weather-worn features, deepset eyes, a sharp chin softened by stubble. Rumpled workclothes, heavy boots. Long fingers and rough, close-trimmed nails. His tattoo and his woven bracelet... Were those supposed to be clues? Perhaps someone 'in the know' would understand them and... and what?

It makes Buddy's head hurt to think about it. Duck looks no different from the painter and handyman that he's always known. Mr. MacDonald's only son. Always said to be honest. Reliable. Even while drinking, he had finished the few jobs he had taken. A bit of a loner, he's always been shy with women, apparently leery of a relationship.

But all this time, Duck had been... with men? Had... slept with men. Had kissed them, maybe. Loved them. Had gone to the Watch and... _met with_ men like Jarvis.

Something finally snaps into place in his head. He opens his mouth before he can think. "Oh my god. I met you once at South Cape, didn't I?"

Duck stares at him, very obviously perplexed. "You're just now remembering that?"

Waves of embarrassment crash through him. "Y-Yeah."

Junior year at Wilby High had been a messy, distracting one. His lacrosse coach had had differences with his grandfather, which had translated to his interaction with Buddy on the team. Classes had seemed harder. He'd been embroiled in trouble with a girlfriend. His father's illness had been worsening rapidly. Losing his favorite refuge, South Cape, to the new resort had seemed like a final personal blow from the universe.

"I was a self-centered arse back then. What can I say?" He hesitates, then asks, almost afraid of the answer, "Were you there to... meet someone?" He's not a fool. He remembers what South Cape had used to be.

For a long moment, he thinks maybe he's insulted Duck again. The other man's face has gone completely blank.

Then Duck turns his head away, bends over his knees, and begins to shake silently. After a few seconds, Buddy becomes aware of soft gasps of laughter. "Jesus, Buddy." Duck rubs his forehead with the last two fingers of his right hand, his cigarette held deftly between the other two. He takes a final drag, then drops the butt on the porch step and grinds it out. "Want a soda?"

Buddy struggles a bit with words before he answers, "Okay."

Duck flows to his feet and disappears into the house. He returns with a root beer and a ginger ale and offers them to Buddy. Buddy chooses the root beer, and he rolls the sweating can against the side of his neck, needing the coolness.

"I guess I can't blame you," Duck says as he sits back down and opens his ginger ale. "South Cape feels like a million years ago. And to answer your question, yeah, I was there hoping to meet someone. But I was still a kid. I had no idea of anything. You scared me off, and I never went back there again."

Duck's smiling, obviously amused, but Buddy is horrified.

"I remember now. I called you a homophobe, didn't I?"

Duck's wry smile widens into a grin. "Some investigator you are, huh?"

Buddy concentrates on snapping open his root beer, and he takes a long swig to forestall the string of curses he wants to indulge in.

Duck taps his can against Buddy's when he lowers it again, before taking a swallow himself. "I had a crush on you," he tells him, wiping his mouth with one wrist.

Buddy chokes slightly. "You're joking," he sputters.

"Nope." Duck's expression is utterly bland.

"You hardly knew me," Buddy asserts, feeling lost all over again. What had Sandra said to him? _"You didn't even look at me in high school."_

"Sure I did. Captain of the lacrosse team. President of the Poetry Club. VP of the Astronomy Club. Great-grandson of Richard Augustus French. And pretty as Prince Charming. What's left to know?" Disconcertingly, he winks, and Buddy snorts a laugh, sharing what he realizes is a joke. "It was like one of those movie star crushes, I guess. But when I saw you at South Cape..."

Buddy winces. "Sorry. I got defensive."

"You had an image to keep up. I get it. I was a teenager, too."

"No, it's not just that." Buddy scrubs the back of his neck with one hand, unpleasant memories resurfacing. High school had been hard for other reasons, too. "I mean, I was president of the Poetry Club, right? And I didn't-- I don't have a lot of body hair. I liked to read. I wanted to... to save the whales and save the trees. I always listened to my mother, for Christ's sake."

"Huh." Duck seems to get what he's saying. "So people talked?"

"My teammates. Some of the guys, sometimes. Just ragging, you know. I don't think anyone actually thought--" He grimaces, remembering who he's talking to. "Not that being gay is a bad thing," he corrects himself preemptively.

Duck waves that away. "So people talked."

"Yeah."

"I didn't know."

Buddy shrugs. "We grew up."

"Some of us didn't." The smell of wet paint permeates the air.

"Do you want some help with the windows in front?" he offers.

"I've got it." Duck looks at him, unblinking, for a second, then adds in a casual tone, "Dan's moving in tomorrow." Buddy's starting to get used to his seemingly random conversation changes. It's no wonder that Duck had worked at such a breakneck pace to get the brutal messages off his wall.

"Congratulations." It's sincere. Whatever else he feels, this he knows. He wants for Duck and Jarvis to work out. Maybe he figures if they can do it, then everyone else must have a chance. Maybe it'll make him feel better about being an islander if only he can see everyone accept this. Maybe he's just being a damned idealist again, and he wants to see two people happy.

In any case, it's the right thing to say. He watches as pleasure blossoms tentatively over Duck's face.

"Thank you." Duck is weirdly formal in his embarrassment. It makes Buddy smile.

Buddy spins his soda can around in his hands a few times before taking the chance to say, "I'll let the Chief know, if you want. We can get an extra patrol in the area." Chief Montrose is a man who doesn't brook any trouble on the Island, no matter the target or the source.

Duck's expression withdraws again, as he'd expected. He's almost sure Duck is going to refuse, but then he relaxes, and he says, "That might be a good idea."

"I'll talk to him tomorrow." He's relieved, and gratified, by Duck's acceptance. Then it's Buddy's turn to tap their drinks together. "To you and Dan Jarvis."

Duck tilts his head in acknowledgement as he drinks his soda.

He's still hard to read, but Buddy thinks maybe he's got an inkling of who this new, old stranger is. And he likes what he sees.

END Interlude.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This section is special because it was originally -- shorter and from Duck's POV -- supposed to be the _entirety_ of "Points In Common".  One little flare of fic immediately post-movie, and I was to be done with Wilby forever.
> 
> As I started working on it, however, I started wondering what happened before, and what after.  It changed into a story called "Cigarettes In The Dark", which had this section, plus the pre-movie scene from South Cape, where aside from Buddy's environmental tendencies, Duck finds out that Buddy's sneaking smokes and joins him.  There was to be a third part as well, post-movie.
> 
> For reasons I still fail to understand, this story simply... _exploded_ out from the middle.  The pre-movie scene grew longer and added to itself.  The post-movie part eventually changed completely, into what is now Part 5 of this story.
> 
> This scene became the ending of what is now Part 3, but there came a time when I realized that Part 3 ended much better where it does now.  I also realized that most of the emotional points I hit in this part became redundant to the first section of Part 4, which I'd nearly completed by then.  So I was suddenly at this weird place where what was once the entire story now looked like it had to be cut out!
> 
> Well, I had many objections to doing that, of course.  This is the most direct description of how Duck's and Buddy's lives are similar, despite outward appearances, which is the main theme of "Points In Common".  This is also, in my head, where Duck and Buddy really begin to click over from semi-good acquaintances to two people with the possibility to become real friends, and I didn't want to lose it.
> 
> So, literally worrying at this in bed one night before falling asleep, I hit upon the idea of telling this scene with Buddy's voice instead of Duck's.  Thanks to this 'trick', I figured I could now justify this scene's continued existence.  It gives us a window into the head of the secondary main character of the piece, at the same time providing a change-of-pace breather in the middle of a story that is -- by my writing standards -- inordinately long.  (I have little confidence in my ability to keep a reader's interest past 5K words.)
> 
> And that, dear readers, is how this section came to survive and appear upon your screens today.  I hope you found it worthy.  


	5. Points In Common, Part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Goddamn the timing of the justice system of Nova Scotia._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative Links:  
> <http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/43263.html>

Duck brushes Dan's cheek and calls his name. It takes a few moments, but finally Dan's green-hazel eyes slit open.

"Hey," Duck says softly.

Dan closes his eyes and grunts.

Duck shifts from his squat beside the bed to a kneel so he can bend down and kiss Dan on the cheek. Dan sighs and opens his eyes again.

"Morning," he says.

"I'm going for a run. Want to have breakfast when I get back?"

Dan shakes his head. "I'll be in town by the time you get back."

"You're not going to work, are you?" he demands. Dan suddenly looks more awake. He gets up on one elbow.

"Yes, I am."

"Take a day off. Who the hell wants to rent videos on a Monday?"

"I'm going to work, Walter." Dan's eyes are stony. He swings his long legs out of bed and then stalks into the bathroom, not quite slamming the door in Duck's face.

He can take a hint. So he straps on his running shoes and lets himself out the door.

Goddamn the timing of the justice system of Nova Scotia, he thinks bitterly. He does his warm-up stretches in only a cursory fashion before taking off down the street through the early morning fog.

It's been two weeks since same-sex marriage has been legalized in Nova Scotia, the fifth province to do so (and Yukon being the only territory so far). It seems to have brought out every homophobic jerk in all of Wilby to protest. They've even formed a Coalition For The Families Of Wilby, though as far as Duck can see, it seems to be more of a Coalition For Kicking Duck And Dan Out. The police had finally had to set dedicated security details outside Duck's house and the premises of Jarvis Video before things could settle down.

As if that weren't bad enough, Duck's feeling terrible about how he'd treated Sandra yesterday morning. He and Dan had ventured to Iggy's for breakfast, and -- largely due to Sandra, he knows -- the atmosphere had been so peaceful that they'd been feeling relaxed and enjoying their meal. He doesn't know what exactly prompted it -- he's sure their body language must have said _something_ , but he doesn't know what -- but Sandra winked at them as she refilled their coffee cups and said, "So when's the wedding, boys?"

He'd seen Dan jerk in surprise out of the corner of his eye, and he'd growled, "Shove it, Sandra!" before he could think.

She'd been hurt, of course, and Dan had given him a censuring look that he had felt obliged to argue with. Everything had gone downhill from there, until they'd gone to bed angry at each other for, by then, completely irrelevant reasons.

Jesus fucking Christ. He wants to stand up and shout, _"We've only been dating for three months, people!"_

He can't imagine why everyone seems to assume that he and Dan are about to get hitched. Hell, Paul MacDonald had lived with a woman for over thirty years without any wedding bells ringing. What makes them think his son will be any more inclined to leave behind the single life?

It's stressing the both of them. Duck's temper is starting to show more, and Dan's been wondering out loud if it would be better if he found his own place to live. He knows, even though Dan hasn't said anything yet, that Dan is thinking about leaving Wilby entirely. Duck has no hold over him. Wilby Island has no hold over him. Dan doesn't own property here, only the rent on his video store. (And thank god Dan's landlord, Rick Southerby, is sympathetic to them.) A few months ago, he'd been planning to leave anyway. Hell, a few months ago, Dan had been planning to leave _life_ behind.

The asphalt pounds against the soles of his shoes, and he forces himself faster.

He doesn't want to leave Wilby. Not just because he loves the island, but also because he can't stand to feel like he's giving up. But the alternative would be to lose Dan. He wants to believe that love can always find a way, but Duck MacDonald is practical if nothing else. He knows that if he leaves now, under the kind of pressure the town is giving, that he might never be able to come back.

And he's not sure yet if Dan is worth that risk.

It's not hard to conjure up the memory of hard fingers in his hair, a cold wall against his back, and nasty threats in his ears -- the suffocating misery of his life falling down around him with no way to recover what was lost.

Is it worth it?

He swears under his breath to get rid of the bile taste. He pumps tight-clenched fists viciously at his sides. He tries to run even faster, even though his heart is pounding through his ribs and he can barely draw breath through his constricted throat.

A human figure takes shape out of the fog, and Duck is running so fast that he's almost upon it before he can stop. It's no wonder, because the other person is barely moving, limping along.

Duck doesn't want to get involved with anyone else right now. He wants to turn around and just go -- but he can tell at a glance that the person -- a dark-haired man -- needs help. He's out of the residential streets by now. Unless a car happens by, the obviously lame person is out of luck.

Sighing in frustration, Duck calls out, "Need some help?"

The man turns around and -- shit -- it's Buddy.

Buddy's panting. His face is pinched with pain. His hair sticks to his skull in unflattering clumps. Duck hadn't even recognized him, especially since Buddy's wearing a pair of track pants too tight for him and a sweat-stained T-shirt that Duck's never seen him in before.

"Duck." Buddy sags and looks down at the ground. "I-- Could you help me? My car's just up there." Without raising his eyes, he gestures up the hill. Duck knows there's a gravel turnout in a hundred fifty meters or so. He can just see it from here through the lightening fog. There's a darker mass that must be Buddy's car. It's the SUV, the personal car that Carol usually drives.

"Yeah," he says, because what else can he do? He hikes his shoulder under Buddy's right arm and supports him so that Buddy can hop along on his left foot. It doesn't take long before they've got a rhythm going.

"Think I twisted my ankle," Buddy observes needlessly. "Snagged a root." All this is delivered in short gasps through gritted teeth. He must really be hurting. Duck has no idea why he's even trying to talk.

"What were you doing here?" He tries not to sound accusing, but he doesn't care too much whether he's successful.

"Just a run. Before shift."

"Aren't there jogging trails through town?" _Did you have to come out here and add more crap to my morning?_

"Wanted the quiet." He swears through a moan as his left foot lands wrong, and his right foot comes in contact with the road for a second.

"Okay, wait. This is stupid," Duck realizes. "Give me your keys and I'll drive it here."

Buddy groans. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm an idiot. No news there."

Not quite knowing what to make of that from the normally confident man, Duck takes the keys without comment and jogs the rest of the way to the turnout. By the time he gets back, Buddy is chafing his arms, the cold creeping up on him from his injury plus sudden lack of exertion.

With Buddy's right leg out of commission, Duck knows he'd never be able to drive. Wordlessly, he helps Buddy into the passenger side and gets back in himself to drive Buddy to the hospital clinic.

Buddy is sullen and silent the whole way there, which is perfectly fine with Duck.

***

It's a bad sprain, but the doctor decides that Buddy doesn't need a cast. He's given a brace and a pair of crutches and some Tylenol for the pain. Buddy nods dutifully as he's told to keep off his foot as much as possible, to ice it at two-hour intervals, and to keep it elevated.

"You're going to be fine," Dr. Tucker says, patting Buddy on the knee. Duck remembers seeing this man as a teenager, back when Dr. Tucker's older brother was mayor. He hadn't had white hair then, of course. "Just take it easy for a month or so. Desk work only for at least two weeks, please."

Buddy nods again and says a perfunctory thank you. Neither of them is carrying a wallet, but Dr. Tucker is fine with Buddy paying for the visit next time he's in the area. Small towns are nice like that, Duck is reminded.

By the time Duck gets Buddy home, he figures he might as well finish the job. He helps Buddy into his house and places him at the kitchen table, with his leg resting on the chair across from him, and he pours him a glass of orange juice.

Standing in that quiet house while Buddy tiredly drains his glass, he suddenly thinks to ask, "Where's Carol?"

Buddy sighs and clomps the glass down on the tabletop. "She went home to Richmond for Thanksgiving with her parents. She said it'd be better if she went without me this year."

"She said that?" he repeats.

There's more sharpness there than he'd meant to convey, and Buddy jerks a look at him. "Oh, she'll come back," he assures Duck. "But I don't know what she'll say when she does. Her parents don't like me very much." Buddy rubs his hands over his face. "She was engaged to a man from Hong Kong before she met me. Did you know that?"

Mute, Duck shakes his head.

"It pissed her parents off that she wasn't marrying a Korean." He laughs mirthlessly. "Then she broke that off, moved to the middle of nowhere, and got married to a White guy. Sometimes I wonder if she only married me as an act of rebellion."

Duck sits carefully in the seat diagonally across from the other man, avoiding his propped-up leg. "Do you think she did?"

Buddy sighs. "No. Not really. We had a connection. We... Maybe we still do. It's just been kind of screwy for a while. Too long a while."

Dejection's pouring out of every slump of Buddy's body. _This is the last thing I need_ , Duck grouses internally. But he's never been good at ignoring somebody who needs help, and he feels he owes it to Buddy to at least make an effort.

"I'm sorry." It's the catch-all, meaningless phrase that everyone says. Predictably, it doesn't seem to cheer Buddy any, although he offers Duck a tired, polite smile. "Hey," Duck says, having a sudden brainstorm. "Why don't you write down some of that stuff? About that 'connection' between you."

"Huh?"

"You know. 'Twenty reasons we're together.' Like a Valentine." Women like that sort of thing, don't they?

Buddy's looking at him like he's grown a second nose. Out of his elbow. Duck rolls his eyes, but he's committed now. He stands and finds his way to the study. It looks mostly unused, but he's able to dig up a legal pad and a pen from the first drawer of the old desk that's so battered it could have once belonged to Buddy's great-grandfather. Then he comes back and drops the items in front of Buddy.

"There. Write."

Buddy takes the pen but stares irritably at the page. "What the hell am I supposed to write?"

"Let's start with 'Number One'..." he snaps. He's starting to wonder if this was a dumb idea. He isn't used to poking into other people's business, and he's wishing suddenly that Buddy had put up more of a fight, or at least had looked less pathetic and in need. It's not as if he can magically fix whatever's going on between Buddy and Carol, and even if he could, that wouldn't mean...

Buddy scowls but writes '#1.' on the paper. "Okay, Doctor MacDonald. Now what?"

Ignoring the sarcasm, he sits back down and leans his elbows on the table. Thinks. "How about what you told me before? You said she made you feel special. Write that down."

Buddy stares skeptically at him for a moment longer. Then he heaves a put-upon sigh and says out loud, as he writes, "Number one... You make me feel special." He looks up expectantly.

"Great. Now think of nineteen more."

"Duck!"

"C'mon, I'm serious. You've been married for seven years. What do you like about her?" Two people who have stuck together for that long... There have to be good memories there. Things to lean on, to build on. Not every relationship ends in pointless confusion. Right?

Buddy shoots Duck an ill-tempered glare. "All right," he says. "But you have to do it, too."

"What?"

"I'll do a list for Carol. You do one for Dan. Easy." He rips off the top sheet of the legal pad, then the next one down. He slides the fresh sheet across to Duck and spins the pen after it.

It's on the tip of Duck's tongue to protest, but the pen overshoots the edge of the table, and he catches it automatically. Then he's in a perfect posture to start writing. Buddy's crossed his arms and is giving him a challenging look.

"All right," Duck snaps, the stubborn part of him rearing up. "Number one... You make me feel special." He scrawls what he says, then tosses the pen back with a cheeky grin.

Scowling, Buddy takes it, stares at his own paper for a moment, then writes something. He reads out loud, "Number two... Your skin always smells nice. You make me think of summer."

Duck laughs, catches the pen as it comes hurtling back, and writes, "Number two... Your skin smells nice. You make me think of old cars and Italian food."

Buddy raises a curious eyebrow at that but doesn't say anything. Instead, he snatches the pen Duck flips back to him and writes, "Number three... Your soft breasts fit in my hands like they were made to be there. Your nipples taste like candy." He shows his teeth as he tosses the pen back.

Not even flinching, Duck writes, "Number three... Your cock is a work of art. Food art that I can taste, with a creamy filling."

Buddy misses the pen as it comes back, so he has to pause to lean over and scrabble for it before he glares at Duck and writes, "Number four... When I'm inside you, it's magic. The way you moan and shake when you come around me makes me feel like I'm king of the universe."

So Duck's next one is, "Number four... When you're inside me, I can see the future. I can see you fucking me slow and hard, all sweating and desperate to have me, moaning like a porn star."

"Oh my god!" Buddy has a hand over his face, and he's turning red where it shows. His teeth flash in a laugh. "Okay, okay. I concede."

"Your turn," Duck prompts him. He thinks he must be blushing himself, but he deliberately half-stands and reaches over to place the pen across Buddy's legal pad.

Buddy tracks it, then looks up at Duck through his lashes before picking it up to write, "Number five... I tried to convince you for a week that you would look incredibly sexy with red nail polish on your toenails. Finally you said to me, 'I'll do it if you do'." He lobs the pen back and Duck catches it -- just barely.

He doesn't say anything, but he stares at Buddy with his eyebrows raised and the pen cupped between his palms -- until Buddy cracks a smile, and nods. "No kidding?" He tries to imagine Buddy wearing nail polish on his toes.

"Yeah. Worth it, believe me. I got hard every time I saw the color red for a month. And then it was Remembrance Day weekend. Damned Mounties and the flag on TV every day."

Duck surprises himself by laughing uproariously. He feels carefree for the first time in, god, forever. Tapping the pen against the table, he glances quickly at Buddy before writing, "Number five... You saved my honor from Charlotte Deluke once. I never thanked you for that."

He grins and doesn't answer Buddy's questioning look, and Buddy's next one is, "Number six... The first time you cooked at my house, you'd bought a fish that turned out to be still alive. I expected you to scream, but you asked me for a hammer and bashed it dead right there in the sink. Most amazing thing I ever saw."

"Number six..." Duck follows. "When I took you out on a rowboat that time, I fell overboard because I was nervous, not because you rocked the boat. But it was your fault when you lost the oar and I had to jump back in after it." Buddy laughs out loud at that one.

Buddy hesitates, and Duck listens with surprise as Buddy writes, "Number seven... The first time I saw you, you were angry enough to spit fire, and you were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I knew that you could change my life, and I wanted you with a passion I'd never felt before."

Duck has to clear his throat before he writes, "Number seven... You got Sandra to buy a bouquet of flowers for me, because you were still too scared to do it yourself. Then you kissed me on the front porch before you gave them to me. I know how hard that was for you."

His heart's going a little fast, and he doesn't look directly at Buddy's soft expression as he spins the pen back across.

"Number eight..." Buddy starts, after a pause. "Your fried mozzarella is better than anyone else's. Really. Stop worrying!"

Relaxing into a smile, Duck writes, "Number eight... I like the way you pat the hood of your car sometimes, like it's your trusty steed."

They go on in that vein, back and forth.

When he finishes with number twenty, Duck wonders if they're going to stop. Buddy, however, snaps his fingers for the pen until Duck hands it over, and he doesn't seem to hesitate when he writes, "Number twenty-one... Two months after we got married, we took that honeymoon trip to New York. It rained and we were miserable. You joked that you were divorcing me. We laughed so hard, that was how ridiculous it sounded then."

Buddy rolls the pen back without looking up, so Duck swallows and writes, "Number twenty-one... When I first heard you were in hospital, and why, I drove home and just sat in my garage for two hours. I thought that I wasn't enough for you. Sometimes I still can't believe that you told me I was wrong."

He raises his head back up at the same time as Buddy does, and they share a long look. Then Buddy licks his lips, and he holds out his hand for the pen again.

They stop for only a few minutes while Duck preps an ice bag for Buddy's ankle and then pours them both some water. Sometimes they pause to think about what to write, or to consider what had just been numbered and read -- made real. Otherwise, the alternation of their voices and the scratch of pen on paper, the shuffle of paper on paper, doesn't stop.

"Number forty-one... I secretly think it's funny how you treat Deena. Am I a mean bastard?"

"Number fifty-nine... I thought you looked like a dork when we first met. You still do, but I like it."

"Number seventy-three... I was whistling 'Moon River' all that week after you had it stuck in your head."

"Number ninety... I can always recognize that twist in your little toe. It's quirky, just like you."

Their voices grow hoarse and Duck's hand gets sore. Tired of throwing and catching, they alternately flick and roll the pen, getting used to the scrape of it traveling across the grain of the kitchen table. Duck writes big, and it seems like he's asking for another page every few minutes until finally Buddy tears off ten sheets or so for himself and just tosses the rest of the pad over to Duck.

"Number one hundred fifteen... I love the way your tiny fingers feel in my hand."

"Number one hundred thirty-six... When I was a kid, I thought the West coast was populated by pirates and Vikings. I guess a cowboy is close enough."

"Number one hundred fifty-four... I've tripped over that bush more times than you have. I think I never dug it up out of pride."

"Number one hundred seventy-two... The kids didn't steal the paper last week. I threw it away because I didn't want you looking for an apartment."

"Number one hundred ninety... I wish your mother hadn't made you stop taking piano lessons. I had a dream one time where I saw you play, and you were amazing."

It must be over an hour later when Buddy picks up the pen, stares at his paper for a long time, then writes, very deliberately, "Number two hundred twenty... Carol, I love you and I want you in my life. Please say that you want me, too."

Duck draws a quick breath as he takes the pen that Buddy hands over to him. He puts the pen to paper but doesn't write anything yet. He blinks, hard, and takes another deep breath. Then, hesitantly, he writes, "Number two hundred twenty... Dan... Dan, I think we have something good together, and I want to be with you." Closing his eyes briefly, he adds, "...wherever you decide you have to go."

As soon as he finishes the last period, he drops the pen like a hot coal and looks up. He stares straight into Buddy's eyes and says, solemnly, "Carol's not going to leave you." He's never been more sure of a thing in his life.

And guess what? He's right.

***

Buddy invites them over for Christmas dinner with himself and Carol. Dan is all for it. He's always loved the small town friendliness of Wilby and he likes to take advantage of it when possible. Opportunities have been fewer since he's gotten together with Duck, and Duck wants to accommodate him. He's a little leery about dinner, however, until Carol calls them herself.

They've met up a few times since July, but only at public venues. Carol's still noticeably uncomfortable with them. Duck's not sure if she disapproves of their relationship, or if she's still embarrassed over what happened between herself and Dan -- or between herself and Duck, for that matter. As he gets to know Carol better, he thinks that her outburst in front of him those months ago had probably been highly uncharacteristic of her.

They're told to arrive at five, so they ring the doorbell a cautious two minutes early with a bottle of good cider and a cheesecake from Lottie's. The shingled walls, dark tiled roof, and peaked sash windows of the house, with the gazebo out back are a contrast to Duck's rather more humble dwelling. It's closer to the center of the island, too, so the weathering isn't hardly as bad. Bare-limbed trees edge one side of the gravel drive and randomly dot a large expanse of what must be a lawn.

The inside of the house is polished and neat. Duck's a little worried about where to put his feet at first, until Carol points out the towel she's laid in front of the door. They're invited to remove their shoes and make themselves feel at home.

Carol is assiduously friendly, though possibly a little jumpy and too eager to please. She tells them that she always cooks for Christmas, and that usually she invites business relations, but this year she wanted something more personal. There's a tense moment when Buddy calls their attention to a framed painting of Wilby Watch that graces their living room. Dan frowns, and Carol blushes, but when they find out that Carol had painted it, he can feel Dan relax.

"It's lovely," Dan says, in an admiring tone that has Buddy beaming.

Carol makes humble replies and whisks their attention away from the painting. She seats them in the living room and offers them honest-to-god appetizers -- fried mozzarella and stuffed mushrooms.

Ten minutes later, Duck's coming through the kitchen, navigating his way back from the bathroom, when he hears, "Oh. Oh, no!"

Suddenly Carol is rushing in. He stares as she completely ignores him in favor of hauling open the oven and peering worriedly inside. She sighs in evident relief, turns off the oven, and props the door half open. Only when she turns to reach for a pair of oven mitts does she seem to finally register Duck there.

It's a little comical how her eyes widen as her hands flutter toward, then away, from the oven mitts (with a cheerful dandelion pattern on them). They're caught staring at each other, not strangers, but not friends.

"Need help with that?" he finally asks Carol, gesturing toward the oven.

That seems to snap her back into sociable hostess mode. "No, no. You go and make yourself comfortable."

Duck glances toward the doorway. He can hear Buddy and Dan conversing in quiet but pleasant tones. Carol is watching him warily, as if expecting something. So he decides to take the plunge.

"Thanks for inviting us. I know we're not the most popular people."

Wilby Island has pretty much settled into three sets of opinions: 1. "Get those immoral blights on the face of our home out of here!", 2. "I heard they had lunch at Eddie's yesterday. Sat in the corner and refilled their drinks twice. Pastrami and rye with mustard, do you think he's _Jewish_?", and 3. "Who the fuck cares! Can we please go on pretending that they don't exist?"

He wonders which camp Carol is in, or if she's still deciding.

"Don't be silly. We're glad to have you." She's avoiding his eyes, though, busily pulling on the oven mitts, which look new. He has a sudden flash of Val and her gardening gloves. "Thank you for helping Buddy home and taking care of him while I was-- away. I don't know what he would have done if you hadn't been there."

"It was no trouble."

"Are you and Dan very angry with me?" She blurts, leaning her mitted hands on the edge of the counter and staring at him anxiously.

It's not the most unexpected question, he supposes.

Dan forgives her. Duck's certain of that. In fact, Dan thinks the whole thing is bizarrely funny. He speaks of Carol French with something like fondness. Of course, he had been unconscious through most of what had happened, so maybe he isn't exactly in a position to appreciate it. Duck had pointed that out to him again just this morning, and Dan had just shrugged.

 _"She saved my life, Duck. How can I be mad at her for that? And besides, that poor woman hasn't been able to sell her mother-in-law's house for six months because of me."_ Then his lips had quirked again, and he'd added, _"Maybe it'd help if she told them how roomy the cupboard under the stairs is."_ Then Duck had to throw up his hands over the whole thing, because Dan had started laughing again.

Duck is the very last person in the world who would ever try to convince Dan to stop when he is feeling that cheerful about something.

"No. He's fine. I am, too," he adds. She stares back at him for a few long seconds. Then she seems to deflate with relief. For just a moment, the buzzing aura of awareness around her... stills. Duck had never thought of Carol as a particularly emotive person, but he's thinking now that she must keep her feelings under wraps most of the time -- maybe because they are so strong.

Duck... sympathizes with her. He thinks he understands her at least a little. He hadn't expected that. She's not someone who normally fits on his personal radar. Under normal circumstances, they walk in different circles.

"I'm sorry," she mutters to the oven as she opens it again. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

It doesn't sound like something he can answer, so he just waits.

A turkey emerges amidst a cloud of steam. Carol sets the baking pan on the counter and transfers the cooked bird to a serving platter. It's dried on the top, which makes Carol pucker her brow.

"It looks great," he says, before she can start getting more upset about it. In fact, it smells delicious. He's spent the last few Christmases at the Loyalist with the Pearces. Betty can't cook to save her life, even though her husband runs Eddie's Sandwiches, but they always welcome him to dine with them over the holidays. When he called to tell them reluctantly that he had other plans this year, Betty had sounded pleased for him.

Carol shoots him a glare, then seems to remember again that he is her guest. She smiles instead, but it looks tacked on. "You must think I'm a crazy woman."

"Naw. We're all a little different."

Carol pulls out a stack of serving dishes. There's several pots warming on the stove. With her back turned, she admits to him, "Working... It helped me to get away from everything. It crept up on me. I don't know how it became my whole life when I wasn't noticing. Have you ever felt like that about anything?"

Duck smiles wryly. Carol must not be the sort of person to listen to gossip, or else she would know the answer already. "Yeah."

"Really?" She turns to look at him, a ladle of stewed yams in mid-transit. "But you seem so... together."

"I put up a good front, don't I?" He's only half-joking.

She doesn't exactly laugh, but she looks less distraught. "Buddy says I should just forget about the whole thing, treat it like it-- like I was a different person."

That sure sounds like something Buddy might say. "He likes to give bullshit know-it-all advice like that, doesn't he?"

She looks up at him, and-- _"The first time I saw you, you were angry enough to spit fire, and you were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen."_

That convinces him to speak completely frankly: "Whatever you did in the past, that's still a part of you. But it's not just something you have to be ashamed of. You know where the line is now, and how not to cross it again. That's damn helpful when you're ever hurting again. It was maybe hard to learn, but when it ends okay like it did this time, it's worth it. Believe me." That's about as much as he's willing to talk about that. He's hoping maybe if he can understand her, then the opposite is true.

The sharp expression on her face fades to uncertainty.

"Hey, what's going on here? Is the turkey charred to hell?" Buddy pokes his head in the doorway like a hungry jack-in-the-box.

Carol jumps at his voice and glares at him. "It's fine," she says testily. "I'll call when everything's ready to take outside. You're supposed to be entertaining the guests." She starts determinedly straining a bowl of green beans.

Buddy shrugs at Duck behind Carol's back before beating a hasty retreat. Duck decides to follow his cue, leaving Carol to herself for a little while. He senses her watching his back as he goes. If he's lucky, he's done more good than harm.

Dinner is fantastic. The food is like something out of a magazine. Carol apparently takes her perfectionism into all tracks in life. It's a wonder she's not exhausted herself before now. She seems to relax somewhat after they all praise her cooking profusely, even going so far as to start a conversation with Dan about the movie club he's formed, which he is only too glad to expound on.

Dan obviously enjoys himself, flushed with good food and what had turned out to be good company. Buddy is as unconsciously charming as usual. At odd moments, Duck sees him watching his wife with an uncomplicated smile. Sometimes she returns his gaze with a startled look.

Buddy and he have never spoken again about that October morning in the kitchen. Duck doesn't think they ever will. He's got a stack of ink-covered yellow lined paper folded away in the glove compartment of his truck. He wonders what Buddy's done with his. Occasionally, Dan or Carol say something, and he and Buddy catch each other's eyes about it, but that's all.

It's strange to think that someone as irritatingly forthright and flawed as Buddy French can be a kindred spirit to himself. Strange, but somehow gratifying.

"Do you run every morning, Duck?" Carol asks him towards the end of their meal.

"Uh, yeah. Every day except Sundays." He ignores Dan's sidelong look. Duck skips a couple of days whenever he's feeling lazy, but that's not important.

"I've been telling Buddy that he should start jogging again."

Buddy grimaces. "And I tell her, I don't think it agrees with me." He looks down at his leg, now healed. "The last time might have been a sign."

"That was just an accident. More exercise will strengthen your muscles so that won't happen again."

Buddy sends Duck 'help-me' semaphores with his eyes, but Duck just smiles, amused at his predicament. "You could join me," he offers impulsively.

"That's a good idea," Carol responds immediately.

"Sure," Dan puts in dryly. "Since you run _every day_." Duck glares at him, communicating silently that the man who doesn't run at all should not be offering opinions.

Luckily, Buddy's already protesting. "I could never keep up with him. Do you know how long it's been since I did any regular jogging? It's a good thing I didn't have a heart attack the last time."

Duck thinks about it seriously this time. It wouldn't be bad to have a companion. It would be a good motivator, if nothing else. "You can join me partway. How about at that turnout? We can go up to Lighthouse Point, then back. I'll go all the way home on my own while you stop. That should be only about two kilometers."

"I... suppose I could manage that." Buddy's looking like he's interested in spite of himself. He rubs his stomach and stares at the remains of their Christmas dinner. "How about we start after New Year's?"

Carol produces a calendar, and they discover that New Year's Day is a Saturday.

"Let's start on the 3rd, then," Buddy suggests.

Duck pretends to look magnanimous. "Fine with me. Six A.M., rain or shine," he warns. "Don't be late."

That earns a scowl from the other man. "I won't be."

END Part 4.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"On September 24, 2004, Justice Heather Robertson of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court ruled that banning such marriages was unconstitutional and ordered the province to recognize same-sex unions."_ (from [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Nova_Scotia))
> 
> I wanted this story to take place about three months after the movie.  To that end, I made somewhat elaborate plans for how to rile the townsfolk and how to get Carol out of Wilby.  This was before I discovered the date of Nova Scotia's ruling on same-sex marriage and the timing of the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday.  What can I say? The gods of fanfic provided.  


	6. Points In Common, Part Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _By his seventh run, Buddy has enough breath left over to chat._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative Links:  
> <http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/41022.html>

Buddy's as good as his word. He's waiting at the turnout when Duck reaches it on the morning of January 3rd, bundled in what looks like a brand new set of sweats. Duck's already a little fatigued from his run uphill, so his pace is perfect for Buddy's beginners' legs. Despite his prior teasing, he takes it slow, doesn't push. Buddy powers along grimly beside him and is looking remarkably like a steam engine huffing in the cold air when he peels back off again at the end.

The next day, Buddy's back, his face determined. He starts to get the rhythm down. He must have done this before, after all, in high school and at the police academy. Duck's pretty sure it's half relearning the breathing as much as training the muscles. Buddy's not that out of shape, really.

It's relatively easy to get fit again if you once were, so by his seventh run, Buddy has enough breath left over to chat. Neither of them is particularly talkative, but they've started feeling that sense of comfort that spending every morning with each other eventually brings.

Duck finds out that Buddy is a Leafs fan due to an uncle who almost played for them. He doesn't know the first thing about boats, but he likes to fish. He still wants to save the trees. He's a determined agnostic (not an atheist). He's a fan of Mark Twain, Leonard Cohen, and Jim Carrey.

Buddy starts walking downhill a ways to meet him, and then following him partway past the turnout on the way back.

By the time Buddy's able to meet him outside his house and do the whole run with him, Duck has him laughing at bar stories from the mainland, and Buddy's telling tales from college and his one year with the Huskies.

***

On February 12th, halfway up the hill, Buddy asks him, "Do you have anything planned for Monday?"

Duck, who's privately been stewing about it, throws him a glare. "Do you?"

"Steakhouse dinner with a live quartet." He's trying to look smug, Duck thinks, but Buddy's face seems inclined toward sunny and childish. Duck rolls his eyes.

"I was thinking of dinner out, but Dan wants us to be alone. We might go out for a walk if it's clear enough."

They run for a while. Then Buddy says, "Dan's from Vancouver, right? You think he's ever been ice fishing by moonlight?"

Duck's twenty minutes late prying himself away from the warmth of his bed on the morning of February 15th. Dan's hands are very strong, and his mouth is very, very sweet. "Didn't catch anything," he tells Buddy shortly.

"Not even a cold?" Buddy answers innocently. He's been patiently waiting on the stoop the whole time.

Despite stamping his feet to keep warm, the man is at last managing to look smug.

***

March 3rd, a Thursday, Buddy is moody and out of sorts.

"Have you ever thought...?" he says, just after they hit the steepest part of the run up. The exertion steals his breath, or else he uses it as an excuse not to finish. After a while, he says, "When were you thinking about extending your garage? I don't think I'll have the time for a couple of months."

"Not until summer, probably." The weather's only just starting to warm up, and it's still too wet to get any work done. Dan had said it was no big deal when Duck told him last October it was too late in the year to start. That was before he spent a winter bitching about de-icing his car every morning, and blaming Duck for not reminding him about the consequences of not having a covered parking space whenever Duck dared to tell him some form of I-told-you-so.

"Good, good. Summer should be fine," Buddy says, distractedly.

It's not until two weeks later that he hears through Dan, who heard from Sandra, who heard from Deena, that Carol had very quietly had some sort of surgery -- something serious enough to go to the mainland for. She's making a full recovery, though, and already calling into the office with errands for Deena to run.

Duck thinks about sending over some flowers and a casserole like Brenda had done for him. But instead, he keeps up his runs with Buddy and talks about the new garage he's planning. The first time Duck finds an excuse to see Carol at home, she treats him with bright courtesy and makes no mention of it at all. The next morning, however, just before they separate back at Duck's house, Buddy says to him, simply, "Thanks for coming by. Carol really appreciated it."

***

One Friday morning, Buddy calls to say that he won't be there.

"Something wrong?" Duck asks him. Buddy doesn't sound concerned, but he hasn't missed a day yet until now, which makes Duck wonder.

"No. It's just that, you're going to need the time to get your truck out. Oh, and you better wake Dan up, too, or he's going to be late for work."

"What...?"

Buddy laughs and hangs up.

Rushing outside, Duck stares in horror at what looks to be a few kilometers' worth of masking tape, sealing his garage shut. Dan's car in its space on the front lawn has been wrapped around with saran wrap so the doors won't open, and the windshield is covered in window paint -- abstract designs and drunken-looking smiley faces.

"April Fool's!" proclaims the chalk message on his garage door, in garish green and pink.

Duck stumbles back inside in a daze. As soon as he closes the front door, he goes to the bedroom to wake Dan up roughly and tell him with grim determination, "We have eighteen hours. Think!"

***

On April 19th, Buddy knocks on his door instead of simply waiting for him outside. Duck lets him in to use the washroom while he gets started on his stretches and warm-up in the front yard. Buddy still looks antsy once he joins him, but Duck doesn't press until they've gotten about a kilometer down the road.

"Something up?" he asks.

Buddy sucks air through his teeth, then tells him, "Warren Montrose is retiring. They, uh, the Mayor asked me if I wanted his job."

Duck's not especially surprised. Buddy's good at what he does, and, perhaps more pertinent, his practical attitude toward discipline and justice align neatly with Chief Montrose's and Mayor Hilborne's. It would mean more time in the office, and more time dealing with police personnel instead of civilians. If he works at it, though, Buddy could still keep his finger on the pulse of the town. Stan would probably help with that.

It would mean a raise, and no more night shifts. It would mean prestige, formal dinners, and pictures in the paper. At forty-five, Buddy would be one of the youngest Chiefs of Police Wilby Island has ever had, but the people trust him, and he wouldn't break that trust.

"Are you going to take it?"

"Yeah. I think I am."

"That's good. Congratulations."

"Thanks."

"You going to buy a new suit?"

Buddy groans. "I think I'd better."

***

On May 5th, Buddy looks tired.

"Carol's parents are going to call her tonight," he says, without prompting. "They're going to tell her how adorable her niece looks in her traditional garb. They'll probably email us pictures. They'll ask us again why we don't have kids. They'll wail about how old Carol is getting. They'll probably call me impotent and a few other names that Carol won't translate for me. We'll probably have a fight afterwards. I don't know why the hell she even picks up."

Duck squeezes Buddy's shoulder. "They're her parents."

"I know."

***

On May 23rd, Buddy meets him at the turnout for a short run. He needs to be on duty early to help lead the parade and then run security for the Victoria Fair.

He's still nervous about being Chief. This is the first large-scale event he'll be in charge of in his new position.

On the way back down, he tells Duck, "My dad loved Victoria Day. Looked forward to it every year. He'd forget my name after a day away at school, but he always remembered the Queen."

Duck checks to see if Buddy's sad, but his expression is relaxed and fond.

He goes to see the parade later with Dan, Sandra, and Emily. Everything runs smoothly.

***

On July 21st, Duck's outside early enough to watch Buddy come down the hill and park his car at the curb.

"Morning," they call to each other.

Buddy puts his left leg up on the rail to stretch his hamstrings just like usual. "Good news yesterday," he remarks, as he switches legs.

Duck shakes out his arms to keep from tensing up. "Yeah." He gets down and starts his pushups. Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty... He gets up and jogs in place, waiting for the question.

Buddy asks a different one instead: "Anyone give you trouble?" He's bent over, doing opposite toe reaches, not looking at Duck. His voice is quietly authoritative. Now that he's Chief, he'd be the one ordering extra patrols if need be.

"Haven't been to town yet, but I'll be meeting Dan for lunch."

"Keep me posted."

"Sure."

A minute later, they're moving out. The day's going to be a hot one. The sun's already clear and strong on their backs. Duck squints upward, wondering if he should have worn a cooler tank top like Buddy has, or if he's the smart one for keeping his shoulders covered from burning.

They're quiet this morning, working faster than usual up the hill, maybe because they're both racing the impending heat.

The combination of the quiet, the heat, the news yesterday, and memories of last July get to him somehow. "It's been a year," he says. "For me and Dan."

Buddy grunts in acknowledgement. "Take your time. Carol and I only dated for four months before we got married. We're lucky it worked out."

There it is, out in the open. "We haven't talked about it."

"Have you thought about it?"

It's nearly half a kilometer before Duck answers: "I've thought about it. Don't know if he has."

"Well, you've got time. No rush. I don't think either of you is going anywhere." Buddy throws him an amused look that Duck manages to return.

***

The next day, a shifting sea breeze brings in fog heavy enough to cover much of the sun's direct heat. They pace themselves better this time and have more breath to josh each other about Buddy's new running shorts (bright yellow) and Duck's new haircut (not quite bald), and to argue over the Mooseheads' new lineup.

At a lull in their conversation, Duck tells Buddy, "My first serious boyfriend. Erik. We got along great for the first year. And then it just -- fell apart."

Buddy seems to wait for him to say more. When Duck doesn't, he replies, "Carol and I were great for two years, and pretty good for the third. I think it was my mum getting sick that first caused problems. We got through it in the end, though."

Duck thinks about that. "I don't think there was really a _thing_ like that for us. We just started fighting about stupid stuff, more and more." He pauses to wipe his forehead with the sweatband on his right wrist. "Then the fights started getting mean."

"Mean, how?" He glances over at Buddy, and he senses a chilliness come over the other man, a tight air of expectancy.

That makes it easier to say, "Mean like, he'd throw me against the wall sometimes." He leaves out the part about the bruises and the headaches.

There's a long silence.

"It wasn't a big deal. He never hurt me bad, and after a while, I stopped taking it. We MacDonalds don't go down easy." He smiles, but the sharp attention beside him causes his attempted levity to go flat.

"How long a while?" Buddy's voice is quiet, but steely.

"Long enough."

"You were with him for three years, right?"

"Minus a couple of months, yeah. Like I said, it was good for the first year. I almost thought I might bring him home to meet my dad." That hurts to admit.

"What changed?"

"I don't know. I started getting... smarter, I guess." It was a long time ago. He thinks it'd feel stranger to recall all this if he hadn't been thinking about it a lot lately. "I was settling down, getting to know the place. I got along great with his friends. He didn't like that. He started getting pushy, ordering me around. I put up with it for a while, because the good parts were still there, but there were less and less of them as time went on. By the end, seemed pretty much all he wanted from me was to fight or fuck."

Their feet pounding on the road and their labored breathing are the only sounds for a while.

Quietly, Buddy observes, "You were with him for a long time." He's not judgmental, but he is angry. Buddy, angry, is a low rumbling feeling. A few months ago, Buddy had caught a group of kids playing Fire Brigade by setting fire to people's sheds so they could put them out. The story had been in the Sentinel. Duck rubs the hairs on the back of his neck.

"Yeah," he agrees. "But it was really nice when we were good, you know? I guess at one point I just figured, this is probably it. This is the best a guy like me can get, so I might as well hang on to it."

A tall, bulky shape looms out of the fog on the right side of the trail. It's the triple-trunked pine tree that signals the last leg of their run before the turnaround point. Duck starts their sprint, and Buddy swiftly follows. They race, overtaking each other in turns, until Duck puts on a final burst of speed and crosses the 'finish line' -- the demarcation from asphalt to gravel -- half a meter in the lead.

His momentum carries him to break against the cement safety barrier around the lookout point they're at. Buddy fetches up next to him and grunts, his face red and sweaty with exertion. He scowls at Duck.

"You didn't call it," he accuses, through heaving gasps. Duck hadn't yelled, 'Go,' like he was supposed to.

"You're slowing down," Duck answers, grinning but no less breathless. He leans over, bracing his hands over his knees, and checks his wristwatch for the time. They can't rest for more than thirty seconds before their heart rates start falling too far. He rolls his neck and stretches his calves. Beside him, Buddy does the same.

As always, he waits for Buddy's cue. His recovery time is longer than Duck's, partly because he spends his days behind a desk, partly because he still smokes too damn much. At around twenty seconds, Buddy meets his eyes, and Duck readies to take off again -- but Buddy snags him by the arm as he does, causing him to yell in surprise, his feet skidding slightly on the gravel.

"Wait." Buddy's still panting a bit. It takes a second before he asks, "What did you mean? 'A guy like you'?"

Duck frowns.

"Because you're, what, the son of a fisherman? A high school graduate? Because you're gay?"

Duck shrugs. He should have known Buddy would get like this. Yes, he _had_ known, something whispers. So why had he said anything?

"The fucker had no right," Buddy hisses. He's getting worked up.

"No, he didn't. That's why I hit him back." Too late, he remembers he hadn't intended to mention that.

"Bloody hell." Buddy doesn't often swear. The words come oddly from his soft mouth. "Did he ever force you? Coerce you for sex?"

Duck shakes Buddy's hand away, poised between shocked laughter and embarrassed fury. "What the f--" He clamps his mouth shut. He reminds himself that Buddy's a cop. A good one who patrols with a purpose and asks the questions that need asking. Wilby's not the sort of place that has knife fights in the street, but things happen that everyone knows and doesn't talk about. "No," he answers.

"Bloody _fucking_ bastard." Buddy slaps his hands down on the safety barrier as he pivots away to turn his glare out over Lighthouse Point.

Duck watches him for a long moment, before he says, "He threatened to tell my dad about us if I tried to leave him." Buddy's mouth thins in a tight line. "I don't think he would have. He didn't have the guts. But it was a shitty thing to say."

Buddy swears again. The next thing Duck knows, there's arms around him. He tenses up purely out of reflex, but when Buddy strokes fingers through his hair, he tries to pull away for a different reason.

It's a quiet road they're on at this time of day, but anyone might happen by. Some people still give nasty looks when he and Dan hold hands in public. He can't let them think... But Buddy doesn't let him go. He should have expected that, too, shouldn't he?

"He had no right," Buddy repeats, softly now.

Duck shudders. He takes a couple of breaths and then lets his head drop forward onto Buddy's broad shoulder. He leans a bit, letting Buddy take some of his weight. How long had it been since he'd shared a hug with someone who wasn't a lover? Not since his dad had died, maybe, and now Nancy won't even look at him anymore, much less touch him.

The skin under his forehead is hot from their run and a little acrid with sweat, but Buddy's scent is familiar and comfortable. Safe. He wonders if Emily had felt this way when he'd tried to comfort her after running off that little shit at the motel. He hopes so. He really hopes so.

"What if I screw up?" The words burst out of him, falling into the small triangle of space between them. "What if he wants to leave me, and I lose it?"

Buddy gets what he means. "You'd never hurt anyone, Duck," he assures.

"What if I do? Shit, I... Buddy, I _love_ him." He does. He has for a long time. His dad had loved the same woman long after even her death, enough to cause grief to the next woman who dared to love him. Duck's more like his dad than he maybe wants to be. He knows he has a lot in common with Erik, too. That's why they'd hit it off in the first place. He's afraid to imagine what he'd do if Dan decided to leave.

"Yeah, so you won't hurt him. And why would he want to leave you, anyway?"

"Hell, lots of reasons."

"He won't. Trust me." He sounds so sure. It's a crazy thing to say, but Duck wants to believe it. Buddy takes his shoulders and pushes him back to look in his face. "If you do ever hurt him, I'll bust you for it. I promise. Toss you in jail and throw away the key." He's got a grim smile that nevertheless speaks of truth.

Duck laughs with a little hitch. His head's crowded with things that he doesn't know how to say. He pulls Buddy in and squeezes him once -- tight -- then steps back. He looks at his watch. "We need to go. My heart rate's in the basement."

"Whose fault is that? Drama queen."

Duck shoves him, and lets himself be shoved in retaliation, before they start back.

***

The chill, windy morning of November 22nd, Duck's late again. He apologizes as he hurries through his stretches, and he tells himself that he's only imagining the curious looks Buddy is giving him. He restrains himself firmly from bouncing and he tries to keep the smile off his face for as long as possible, but it's useless. He definitely isn't imagining anything, because by the time they're ready to go, Buddy is grinning outright.

"Something you want to tell me?" he asks mildly.

"Fuck, _yes_!" Duck explodes. He runs his hands through his hair, unable to keep still. "Dan proposed to me yesterday."

Buddy laughs in delight and pulls him in for a rough hug. "I knew it," he shouts after letting Duck go. "I always knew you were the girl."

"Shut up," he returns, but it's impossible to put any heat into it.

"You said yes, right?"

He clears his throat. There's no reason to be _shy_ about it, goddammit. "Yeah."

"When's the wedding?"

"I have no idea," he answers truthfully. "I don't know what the hell we're doing. We didn't even talk about it."

"You'd better start making decisions. When, where, who. What color, what style, how many. Every tiny little thing. I thought Carol would strangle me before we were ready. Hell, I half-way wanted her to."

Duck groans. "You're not helping, Buddy!"

"Okay, Juliet." Duck gestures mock-threateningly with a fist, but Buddy dodges and dances backward, starting to jog in place. "Let's burn off some of those pre-wedding jitters."

They talk about how abysmal the roads are on the way up, and how two more snowplows might need to be hired this year, with the new construction that's been going on. Buddy wins the sprint and Duck tells him it's only because he lets him, which makes Buddy swat him over the head.

When they get back, Buddy doesn't borrow the shower like he normally does, just stops in to say another 'Congratulations' to Dan.

"Can I tell Carol?" he asks, causing them to look at each other and stammer. Buddy's wide grin turns somewhat droll as he adds, "Brace yourselves. The Sentinel will probably want an interview."

END Part 5.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dates mentioned:  
> Feb 14 -- Valentine's Day, for celebrating romantic love  
> Apr 1 -- April Fool's Day, for playing practical jokes  
> May 5 -- Children's Day in Korea, for celebrating children  
> Monday before May 25 -- Victoria Day, for celebrating the reigning monarch's birthday  
> Jul 20 -- " _On July 20, 2005, Canada became the fourth country in the world and the first country in the Americas to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide with the enactment of the Civil Marriage Act which provided a gender-neutral marriage definition."_ ([more info](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Canada))
> 
> Note: Victoria Day is not generally a paid holiday in Nova Scotia.  However, I see no reason why Wilby -- a town that makes up a new summer festival for no reason -- shouldn't have some fun on that day anyway.
> 
> Useful links here for [Canadian holidays](http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/canada/) in [2005](http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/?country=27&year=2005) and [Nova Scotia weather](http://www.climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca/climateData/hourlydata_e.html?timeframe=1&Prov=XX&StationID=10859&Year=2005&Month=7&Day=1).  


	7. Points In Common, Part Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _In a flurry of activity, March comes upon them._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative Links:  
> <http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/43479.html>

"Duck!" A swirl of icy, winter wind follows the other man inside. Duck stands up from the window table he's saving, just in time for his friend to throw his arms around him. "Christ on a crutch, Duck, how long has it been?"

"Eighteen years," he answers, barely believing it himself. He detaches himself from Tommy, happy but abashed by his friend's effusiveness, before waving him to sit. "How's Hollywood?"

"It's not the same as Vancouver. That's for sure." Tommy sits back and makes a show of looking around. "Boy, this town has changed, hasn't it? I saw the sign coming in. Four thousand people? We had, what, half that when we were growing up, eh?"

"You've changed, too," Duck can't help but observe.

He tries not to stare, but it's hard. Tommy's got two metal ball earrings glinting in one ear, and rings adorn three out of five of the fingers on his left hand, two of the other. He's still got the freckles, but his hair has been cut short and slicked back like a helmet. Duck thinks he has light makeup on. Eyeliner, at least. Only his mischievous smile keeps him from looking like a complete stranger.

The last time he had seen Tommy had been in Toronto, when Tommy had stopped to visit him. He'd been on the way back to Wilby to help his parents move out to Vancouver with him. They'd talked on the phone several times since then, but not only does Tommy live on the opposite coast, he keeps odd hours. He's also fully embraced the digital age, whereas Duck's crap at anything he can't touch with his hands. Tommy's aghast he still doesn't own a cell phone, much less a computer.

"I'm really sorry I can't make the wedding." Tommy's lively features show real sorrow. "It's times like this I wish I had a more regular schedule."

"Don't be sorry. An overseas job. That's a fantastic opportunity." Duck doesn't have a clue about the kind of world Tommy lives in now, but he's glad his best friend is making it.

Tommy's a set decorator, specializing in period productions. He says it's like interior decorating, only with more antique stores, garage sales, and research involved. He'd started out doing theater work, then landed a job in television. He's working on something Duck can't remember in Hollywood now, and then he's signed on for a two-month project in Europe.

"Hey, I'll be there in spirit, okay?" Tommy gives him that shy look he always used to as a kid, when he's flustered and making an effort to act natural.

"I'm glad you could visit at least."

"Me, too. Wow. I can't believe I'm sitting in Iggy's. We should go see the high school later. Is the Double Scoop still in business? Oh, how about the Watch? People were always talking about building on it."

Duck laughs. Tommy doesn't _know_. He has to work to recall how tiny and inconsequential Wilby had felt when he had lived on the mainland. "Yeah, it's still there."

"Is this your friend back from Hollywood, Duck?"

"Sandra! Yeah." Duck waves the woman over. "Tommy, you remember Sandra Anderson, right? She runs this place now."

"Holy shit. _Sandra_? You still look good... but I wouldn't have recognized you."

"Same here, bozo. That's what thirty years and a baby does to you."

Tommy laughs. "Thirty years, yes. Baby, no." He pats his own flat abdomen playfully. "So did you keep it?" Straightforward as always.

"Emily. Yes. She's a darling. She's at school right now."

"Hey, that's great. Must've been gossip central when you came back, huh?"

Sandra slides a smirk at Duck. "I think something else has trumped anything worth talking about in these parts lately. So, coffee?"

"Yeah, yeah, please. I'm a junkie." After Sandra leaves them alone and goes to the back, Tommy grins at Duck.

"So the wedding. Big news, I'm guessing?"

That's an understatement. "First or second page of the Island Sentinel every week." He takes a fortifying swig of coffee. "I think everyone in town knows what color socks I'm going to wear by now."

"You're some kind of superstar." Tommy's grinning really big. He takes his coffee black.

"It's a circus." Duck blows out a heavy sigh. "People are reading about us like it's some TV show. Everything in the op-eds is about us lately, and somebody's even tried to set fire to the presses to stop them from printing stories. The Sentinel loves it, of course. I'm hoping it'll all die down after a while."

Tommy shakes his head. "How are you holding up?"

"Okay. Better than when it first started." He can't help running a hand through his hair and taking a deep breath. "Damn, sometimes I almost wish..." Tommy raises his eyebrows.

"Hey, you want this, right? You know you don't have anything to prove. You were always big on being independent."

Duck supposes that's true.

"He's not pressuring you, is he? You can call it off. If you're not ready. I mean, just because you _can_ get married doesn't mean you have to."

Duck laughs. _Dan_ pressure him? Never happen. It'd taken six months to even get him to borrow one of Duck's shirts when he ran out. "No. We've both been waiting for this."

"Yes, we have. No cold feet, right, honeybunch?" Duck registers the rush of cold air against his back at the same time as he feels a hand on the nape of his neck. He twists around to smile at the man standing behind him.

"The mystery groom arrives!" Tommy looks over Dan's lanky form avidly, from the top of his dark green knit hat to the brown dress shoes he still favors. "Not bad, Duck. Not bad. He dresses better than you do, anyway."

Dan blushes.

"Hey, don't embarrass him." Duck hooks Dan's hand and pulls him into the empty chair next to his. He pulls Dan's hat off his head and leans in to add, in revenge, "Sweetiepie."

Dan's blush deepens. He touches his forehead against Duck's briefly -- their version of a brush of lips in public (though sometimes they do that, too, now) -- before sitting back. "Dan Jarvis," he introduces himself, holding out his hand.

"Tom Milligan. I guess Duck's told you about me?"

"It sounds like you have an interesting job."

"Yeah. I'm sorry I can't make the wedding. Duck and I were real tight back in high school. I really wish I could watch him get hitched."

"I know. I'm sorry, too."

"Is your family coming?"

"My brother's flying in for a day." Duck squeezes his hand under the table. Dan's parents and sister had politely declined to come. Even Steve had held out until the last minute.

"Yeah? He going to be best man?"

"Yes." That brings a smile to Dan's face. "He said that was the condition for him coming." They hadn't planned on having even that limited of a wedding party, since the courthouse had stated that they could provide the necessary witnesses. When put that way, however, the choice had been simple. If Steve needs the excuse, Duck is more than happy to give it to him.

Tommy turns interested eyes on Duck. "Who's your best man, then? Are you going to have one?"

The door tinkles open, and in a typical feat of perfect timing, Buddy walks in.

He's in a suit. Meetings today, then. It abruptly occurs to Duck that Buddy only has two suits, and since the other one's for funerals, this is probably the one he'll be wearing to the courthouse.

Buddy gives Tommy a curious look before focusing on Duck and Dan. "Glad I could catch you two. Just a second." He rings for Sandra at the counter, and when she comes out, he orders four medium lattes, a plain bagel, and three crullers. "Oh," he moans, looking at the chocolate-dipped confections. "I'm wishing I didn't have that cake last night."

"I'll pack the low fat cream cheese," Sandra laughs, handing him his change. She moves off to prepare the takeout bag.

Buddy comes back to their table, and Duck makes the introductions. "Buddy, this is Tom Milligan, my best friend from high school. Tommy, you remember Buddy French."

"Welcome back to Wilby." Buddy shakes Tommy's hand warmly but doesn't show any sign of recognition. Even if he knew Tommy back then, which is doubtful, it's been a long time. Tommy, however, is looking slightly starstruck.

"Wow," he says. "You haven't changed a bit."

This makes Buddy quirk his lips. "If only," he muses. "Uh, sorry to be rude, Tom, but I've only got a minute, and I need to talk to Duck and Dan about something..."

"Sure, yeah. Go ahead."

Buddy gives Duck a questioning look, and Duck nods, letting him know Tommy's okay. Buddy squats down by the table anyway so he doesn't have to talk loud. The general babble from the other diners keeps his words private to their table.

"About the reception. I know Stan and Mike and I will be there, but I would feel better if we put an on-duty officer outside."

Duck breaks in, impatient. "Buddy, we talked about this--"

"To watch the traffic, okay? That's standard for big parties like this. And I want someone to keep an eye on the crowd at the Loyalist. That's just good sense. Chuck said he'll let me take it out of the special events budget, but to do that, I need one of you to file a form for the event." Buddy pulls a folded sheet in triplicate out of his breast pocket.

"Jesus, Buddy. I don't think--"

"It's real short. Twenty minutes, tops. I think it's worth it, okay? I'll pay the registration fee."

"No--"

"Don't argue. Carol suggested it. She'd even fill out the application for you herself, but they all recognize her handwriting by now and it would look weird coming from the Chief's wife, wouldn't it?" He smiles, but there's an edge to it that Duck instantly understands. Buddy's pushed for him and Dan a lot of times the last year and a half -- more times than Duck thinks is probably good for him. He has to trust Buddy to know where the line is and to let him know when he hits it, like now.

"I'll do it," Dan offers, glancing over the form. "I'm picking up the License from the post office today anyway. I can turn in a copy of it with the form."

"Perfect."

Duck holds up a hand, but it's Dan who asks first, "Buddy, are you _sure_ the Mayor is fine with it?"

"The last thing he wants is any trouble just before his first annual review. It's in the Council's best interest, too. With the Sentinel watching, and Chuck, and me, your wedding's going to be storybook, guaranteed." He beams, cocky and pleased.

Duck is aware of Tommy staring in abject disbelief at their conversation. Buddy must notice it too.

"I'm the Maid Of Honor," he explains flippantly to Tommy. The majority of his smile is directed at Duck, though, who scowls back at him. Buddy still likes to take every chance he can get to remind Duck who the 'bride' is. "Nice meeting you, Tom," he says, and pats Dan on the shoulder before picking up his order from the counter and leaving for his car.

Tommy follows him with his eyes, mouth agape. "That was fucking Buddy French," he says in a loud stage whisper.

"Yeah."

"And he's your--" He flicks his gaze between the two of them. "What the _hell_ , Duck? Since when is Buddy playing this side of the field?"

Duck frowns. "He's not. We're friends."

Tommy waggles his eyebrows and leers. "Friends, like, with _benefits_?" he says, making a gesture with one hand.

Duck grabs Tommy's hand and squeezes -- hard -- though not enough to actually hurt him. When he was a kid, he would've simply walked out whenever Tommy flapped his big mouth, instead of stopping him. They're not kids anymore. " _Just_ friends, Tommy. Okay? This isn't Hollywood or Vancouver, and what you just said is not a joke."

Tommy's not the first person to talk about the Chief of Police and his 'pet queer' -- and most of them not joking around like Tommy is. Most people don't do it in front of Duck anymore, though. Duck's not as young as he used to be, but he still knows a few things. One thing he knows is that what people say matters if enough of them say it.

He remembers Buddy sitting on his porch steps with a root beer in his hand, clearly uneasy, but looking brave and self-deprecating. Taking a quick drink. Flinching a bit when Duck says, _"So people talked."_ and then dipping his head, looking ashamed at his own reaction. _"Yeah."_

Dan puts a quelling hand on his forearm, and he lets Tommy go.

"Sorry, sorry," Tommy apologizes, as he rubs his fingers somewhat melodramatically. "I forgot how uptight people are around here." At least Tommy's keeping the volume down now. He must have learned a few things over the years as well. He recovers quickly, as resilient and incorrigible as ever, and he shoots Dan a smirk. "Awful protective, isn't he?"

"He's a fearless desperado when he needs to be," Dan answers, smiling.

"You ever get jealous of your hubby-to-be's 'friend'? You know he had a huge crush on the guy in high school."

Thank god he'd told Dan that already. Dan shrugs slightly with one shoulder, the way he does when he's amused at something but doesn't want to make a big deal of it. "Buddy's a good guy. I might've fallen for him, too, when I was younger."

Tommy guffaws. "He's a live one, Duck. You'd better put a ring on him fast."

Duck takes Dan's hand. "Soon."

***

"Stop, just forget it." Duck pulls Dan's hand off and rolls away, quickly turning on his stomach. He grinds his face into the pillow, mortified and furious. Dan lays down beside him and puts one arm over his shoulder. Lightly. After a while, Duck shifts his hips a bit and turns his head enough to speak.

"You can still..." But Dan shushes him.

"I'll wait until you can join me. Here." He pushes Duck to his side and turns his back to Duck's chest. He pulls Duck's arms around him.

Duck winds his fingers around Dan's and wraps one leg over his lover's -- his fiancé's -- thighs. Lying down, their differing heights aren't an obstacle to Duck enclosing him within his grasp.

Dan likes to be held. He likes to be held _down_ and reminded that he is wanted. Sometimes, when they're making love, Duck will clench tight around Dan and crush his hands in his own and whisper, _"You're mine, you're mine, you're mine."_

But he can't today.

"Does it ever bother you?" he asks, rubbing his thumbs over the tops of Dan's large hands. "Buddy and me?"

Dan shifts as if to turn around but doesn't complete the action. "What do you mean?"

"What Tommy said today. Are you ever jealous?"

Dan's body stills, but doesn't tense. "Should I be?" he finally asks, sounding confused.

Duck sighs, irritated at himself. "No, of course not." He doesn't feel that way about Buddy. He'd figured that out a long time ago. He can't understand what's troubling him.

"Is that the problem? You want me to be jealous?" Dan says in an amused tone.

"Maybe." That sounds... sort of right. But not. "No. I don't know."

"I'll call him out next time if you want. You there, varmint! Stop sniffin' around my man, or me and my Colt 45 will make sure you're no longer watertight! You understand me? This here gorgeous jack belongs to _me_ \--"

Duck pulls him tight and warns, "Don't."

Dan falls silent immediately. He knows Duck's sometimes not in the mood. He snuggles back into Duck's chest as an apology. Maybe a question. One that Duck's never yet answered. After a long while, he says softly, "I am jealous of Buddy sometimes." When Duck would have protested, however, Dan continues. "But there's some things you tell your best friend that you can't tell your lover. I understand that."

Tommy has nothing to do with the conversation, of course. Duck's bewildered until he figures out what Dan means. Or rather -- _who_. And then he wants to kick himself for being such an absolute idiot.

He hasn't talked to Tommy more than a handful of times in the last twenty years. He hasn't actually had a best friend since high school. He'd forgotten what it felt like.

Breathing deeply against his lover's neck, Duck asks him, "Are there things you tell Sandra that you don't tell me?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

Duck chuckles and turns Dan's face enough so he can kiss him. He likes the fact that Dan and Sandra are so tight. He _loves_ the fact that Dan knows people and families other than Duck's friends, that he talks regularly to the members of the garden club and gripes sometimes about the drama within his growing movie club. Dan has connections in Wilby now that he hadn't had the whole time he'd been here with Val. He's really becoming part of the Island, breathing the air and learning the sea.

Rooting himself deeper into the same earth that Duck is.

"Hm... Thinking of me, I hope?" Dan teases him, slightly breathless.

"Always," he replies, as he slides their bodies closer.

***

They're invited to spend Christmas at the Frenches' again, and they run into Stan while buying another bottle of the cider everyone had enjoyed the year before.

"Merry Christmas!" he greets them, pulling the edge of his red and white scarf away from his neckline. He'd evidently just come indoors.

Buddy's told Duck about Stan's part in the scandal last year that had almost taken Dan's life. Even so, it's difficult to dislike Stan, in the same way that it's difficult to dislike a well-meaning mastiff. His round face has more wrinkles now and less hair, but Duck still finds himself responding to the man's earnest cheer.

"Merry Christmas, Stan," Dan returns. "When will Annie be coming home?"

"Tomorrow. Brenda's cleaned her room and everything. Remember when you put those shelves in her closet?" he asks Duck. "Solid as rock," he confides to Dan. "That's what I tell everyone."

"He gave me my first handyman job," Duck tells Dan, not sure if he's mentioned this before. "I think you must have referred me to everybody on the Island. Kept me hopping."

Stan beams. "Good work deserves good returns. That's what my dad always said. Hey, you sure it's okay for the girls to come to the reception? I don't want you to go broke."

Duck looks to Dan, who gives Stan an encouraging smile. "Of course they can. Since we changed venue, we can afford to feed a lot more people."

"I wouldn't worry about that. Wedding food is always awful anyway." He continues, apparently unaware of what he'd said. "The senior center, though. What a great idea. Wish Brenda and I'd thought of it. Might've saved us some money."

"We think it'll be nice," Duck says dryly, not mentioning that the Loyalist had refused to take them. Stan's right, though. The senior center was a good idea after all. Symbolic, maybe. At the least, they can afford to invite more people this way. Once they'd gotten their lists together, they'd found a surprising number of people they were pretty certain could and would attend.

Sandra and Betty will be doing the catering. Duck has reservations about the meal being handled by a diner cook and an accountant known to be a disaster in the kitchen, but Dan assures him that the buffet style lunch will be perfect.

Duck puts an arm around Dan's shoulders. "Thanks for being so supportive, Stan. We really appreciate it."

"Wilby Island was founded by diverse and adventurous spirits. It's a credit to us that you two are comfortable here." Duck sneaks a knowing look at Dan, both of them hearing Buddy in their heads.

"Have a Merry Christmas. Say hi to Brenda and the girls for us."

"Merry Christmas, you two!"

***

Duck's up a ladder taking down some New Year's decorations from the row of trees along the walkway up to St. Agnes when he hears his name. He firms his stance on the rungs and looks down to see Carol's anxious face. "Just a minute."

Arms full of acrylic lights and ribbon, he climbs down carefully. "Is something wrong?" he asks, dropping his load in the truck bed.

"Duck, I'm so sorry. I don't think I can-- I don't think I should be planning the reception anymore. Do you think you and Dan can handle it from here? I'll give you all the contacts and my notes, of course."

It's not what'd he'd expected to hear. Truthfully, he had been somewhat counting on her obsessive nature to make things perfect. But she's already set most of the groundwork, and certainly, she's been under more scrutiny than it's fair to ask of her because of helping them with this. Reporters, knowing she has their itinerary, have been hounding her possibly more than they have been following Duck and Dan themselves. If she's backing out, he can't very well say otherwise. He does ask, "Why?"

"Just, the stress. I don't want to risk--" She grips his arms, and even though he's seen her carve a turkey twice now like it's nothing, he's still surprised by how strong her fingers are. "You can't tell Buddy yet, okay? I'm telling him tonight."

Tears are brimming in her eyes, and Duck suddenly remembers that they are right outside the hospital.

"Jesus, Carol, what is it?" He grips her arms back, terrified. He looks down into her long, pale face.

She's smiling.

"Duck, I'm pregnant."

***

Buddy tackles him the next morning as soon as he opens the door. "You goddamn _bastard_!" he yells, shaking Duck hard enough to rattle his teeth. "I can't believe you found out before I did."

"Congratulations," Duck wheezes after Buddy lets him go. "Hey, you're not dressed." Under his coat, Buddy's in jeans and a sweater instead of his sweats.

"You think I'm freezing my arse off on the hill of doom today?" Buddy turns Duck around and pushes him toward the bedroom. "Breakfast at Iggy's in twenty, my treat. Where's Dan?"

"He's _asleep_."

"Well, wake him up!"

"Is Carol coming, too?"

"Are you kidding? It's six in the morning. She needs her rest. Go get the groom, Juliet. Chop, chop!"

He grumbles, and Dan grumbles, but they go and they toast Carol and Buddy with orange juice over hot steak and eggs. Then they listen to Buddy talk haltingly about what the doctor had found at Carol's checkup eleven months ago. The long discussions they had, about their ages, their jobs, their future. The surgery. The months of secret not-quite-hoping.

"I can't believe it. We thought it would never happen. I can't believe it." Buddy repeats the words in wonder. Duck takes Dan's hand, already reaching for his. He's thinking he can guess how Buddy feels.

***

In a flurry of activity, March comes upon them.

Duck only vaguely remembers the drive to Barrington in Buddy's SUV. Steve, slightly jetlagged, slumps in the back seat with Dan, the two of them making sporadic conversation.

The ceremony is brief and uneventful. Dan's had their paperwork ready for weeks. He thinks either Buddy or Dan snagged a bored clerk to take a picture of the four of them. Duck knows they took the picture because they later have it framed and placed in their living room, but he can't remember taking it. Duck drives on the way back.

Two hours later is the reception, and that's what Duck remembers most.

He remembers entering the room, already filled with people. Streamers, confetti, and shouts of congratulation shower them. Dan's hand in his is the only solid thing amid a wash of noise and color. He and Dan each read a very short speech thanking everyone for coming. Buddy makes a slightly longer speech that causes the guests to laugh and smile. Steve, surprisingly, makes a few brief but moving statements that everyone applauds by loud cries of, "Hear, hear!"

He doesn't remember how the sandwiches and salads and chili taste, exactly, though he remembers Betty crowding a plate on him and saying, "I told you we could handle it." He does remember the soup being a tasty fish chowder. The cake is lemon, by his request. Somebody urges him to feed a slice to Dan for a picture. He remembers Annie and Marjorie squealing when Dan kisses his sticky fingers clean.

He remembers the loudspeakers playing something that Dan and Sandra finally decided on the night before. The song's not important, because what he wants to remember is how it feels taking Dan in his arms and slow-dancing across an empty carpeted floor with everyone watching. Gradually, the spaces fill in around them, and then there's a hand on his shoulder and a pair of mischievous blue eyes. He remembers Dan laughing.

He remembers watching his husband be swept away by his best friend.

He remembers swaying slowly with his best friend's wife. Carol lays her head on his shoulder and cries happy tears, and blames her hormones.

At one point, he finds himself alone. He looks around, and then he goes to an elderly woman who is seated, watching quietly from the edge of the dance floor. Sinking to one knee in front of her, he takes her hand and kisses it, just above the ring his father gave her. "Thank you for coming," he tells her.

"Oh, Walter," she says, her voice brittle with emotion. "I'm so proud of you."

He has to close his eyes for a moment. Then he gets up and presses his cheek to hers. "May I have this dance?" he asks, when he can trust himself to speak again.

In answer, she lets him pull her up and lead her to join the dance.

END.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some useful links here on [Canadian provinces](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Political_map_of_Canada.png), [Nova Scotia counties](http://www.gov.ns.ca/snsmr/muns/info/mapping/counties.asp), and [marriage procedures in Nova Scotia](http://www.gov.ns.ca/snsmr/access/vitalstats/getting-married.asp).
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you enjoyed this story, you might try these:  
>      [Wilby, Wonderful Wilby](http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/39441.html) (Wilby Wonderful), by kuonji  
>      [The Phoenix And The Turtle](http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/40067.html) (Due South), by kuonji  
>      [Nancy](http://community.livejournal.com/starskyhutch911/437348.html) (Starsky & Hutch), by kuonji  
>      [Flying](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2678979/1/) (Cardcaptor Sakura), by kuonji  
>      [Ten Things About Duck MacDonald](http://hieroglyfics.net/thingsaboutduck.htm) (Wilby Wonderful), by Isis  
>      [Quiet In Drowning](http://nos4a2no9.livejournal.com/182490.html) (Wilby Wonderful), by Nos  
>      [Possible](http://slidellra.livejournal.com/66632.html) (Wilby Wonderful), by Slidellra  
>      [Some Cowboys Ride Alone](http://princessofg.livejournal.com/519145.html) (Wilby Wonderful), by princessofg  
>      [And Count Myself A King Of Infinite Space](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13352) (Hard Core Logo/Slings & Arrows), by Aria


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